Andrew Motion picks up where R. L. Stevenson left off, taking us on a fantastic adventure from the shores of Treasure Island to the mysterious New World...Jim and Natty are shipwrecked on the coast of Texas, blown off course on their way home from Treasure Island. But they have stolen something they should have left well alone, something that will haunt them until what was taken has been returned...On their journey they encounter Native American tribes, a wandering group of European Circus performers, deracinated warriors, eccentric pioneers, some landscapes of great serenity and others of terrible savagery, until, at last, they reach the mighty Mississippi. The New World is an adventure story, a race across America, a Western, a travelogue, a love story and a lament for an indigenous culture in the years before its destruction. Andrew Motion has achieved that singular thing - a story that is both very moving and very exciting, and always written with a remarkable clear beauty.

I love The New World... I look forward, hopefully, to more. -- John Sutherland The Times It's written with such gusto and passion that it's impossible not to enjoy it. Irish Independent Motion paints an alluring portrait of a land that is in turns bountiful and beautiful, barren and savage. -- Lucy Scholes Independent Motion's narrative is both more lyrical and more gruesome than Robert Louis Stevenson's. Mail on Sunday Motion has fashioned an exciting narrative that fans of the original will welcome. Good Book Guide

Andrew Motion is the former Poet Laureate, co-founded the Poetry Archive and was knighted for his services to literature in 2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in London.