The Adventures of Benn Gunn by R F Delderfield.
 
Everybody over the age of six in the English-speaking world has a mental picture of Long John Silver, and almost everybody has pictured to himself Pew, Israel Hands, Billy Bones and Ben Gunn, the maroon. How many have thought of Long John when he had two sound legs, or pictured his murderous companions when they were young seamen, on the brink of their bloodthirsty careers?
 
The author read Treasure Island when he was eleven and has read it at least twice a year since. He is now 43 and has two children, Veronica, aged 11, and Paul, aged 9. "It was the constant questions of these two that drove me to my desk to write The Adventures of Ben Gunn." says Delderfield, these questions became the basis of the story,
 
Illustrated by William Stobbs