WHAT IS EVERY BOY'S DREAM? To be plunged bodily into high adventure. To be plucked from everyday life and dropped into a seat-of-the-pants existence, with danger at every turn. And, of course, there must be pirates. Bloodthirsty, murderous sea dogs. Filthy as bilge water and treacherous with gold fever.

For me, this is the essence of Treasure Island. Jim Hawkins could be any boy on the planet. He is no muscle-bound superhero. He is an ordinary lad who finds himself in an extraordinary situation. In the reader's mind, he is Jim Hawkins. At least, he could be. It's just possible. I know that for eight hours in 1977 I was Jim Hawkins.

I remember approaching the book with great reluctance - after all, it is a classic, and teachers were always pushing classics at us. And if you read a classic without objection that would be just the same as admitting that teachers could occasionally be right. Surely that couldn't be true, could it?

Somehow Treasure Island penetrated my defences, and I began to read. Within pages, and quite against my will, I was completely immersed in Robert Louis Stevenson's world of danger and intrigue. I clearly remember being so worried about Jim Hawkins's immediate future that I actually left a sweaty handprint on my school desk. Of course, when the teacher asked me if I liked Treasure Island, I shrugged and said: “S'okay, I s'pose.” Even then, you could tell I was going to be a writer.

So now Jim is not alone on the Hispaniola, we are along for the ride with him, and we stay there by his side, inside his head, until the last page. We hide inside the apple barrel together, overhearing the pirates' plan. We fall under Long John Silver's spell and finally we triumph on Treasure Island. It is a breathless journey and the closest thing to a real pirate adventure we can experience without an eye patch and a time machine. Treasure Island makes us believe that adventure is not only possible, but probable. Every old man we see could be the one to hand up a treasure map and spark off a whirlwind adventure.

Reading Treasure Island again as a writer, Stevenson's characters make me grind my teeth jealously, which is not an attractive sight. Just think: Jim Hawkins, Billy Bones, Ben Gunn and, of course, Long John Silver are all in the same book! Most writers would get a trilogy from such a wealth of characters. Who hasn't heard of Long John Silver? As a teacher, I had to mention the name only in passing, and half the boys in my class would whack the fellow beside them, cackling: “Arr, Jim lad.”

But my personal favourite character is Pew, the blind beggar. Was there ever a moment in popular fiction more sublimely terrifying than when the beggar taps his way down the dark road, ever closer to the spot where Jim Hawkins is hiding? Don't try too hard to visualise that, you'll have nightmares.

In Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson set the tone for a million pale imitations. The old phrase “Oft imitated, never bettered” is very apt in this case. How many wannabe Treasure Islands have we read? How many diluted facsimiles have we seen on the movie screen? Of course there will never be another Treasure Island. It is a unique work of genius, and to date I have met at least a dozen respected writers who claim it as their favourite adventure story. Counting me, that's 13.

Introduction to the Puffin Classics edition of Treasure Island © Eoin Colfer 2008

Eoin Colfer (pronounced “Owen”) is author of the bestselling Artemis Fowl series

Factfile

Treasure Island was the Harry Potter of the 1880s - loved by both children and adults. William Gladstone reputedly stayed up all night reading it.

Robert Louis Stevenson's 12-year-old stepson gave him the idea for the book when they sketched a map of a treasure island together.

Pirates weren't common in the 1880s, so Stevenson set Treasure Island in the 1700s, the era of Captain Kidd and Bluebeard.

Flying the Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flag was a way that pirates scared the crews of the ships they wanted to capture.

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy