The secret depths of male wickedness are around us in every age. Robert Louis Stevenson warned against this in the book Treasure Island. It portrays an adolescent’s initiation into the depths of manly wickedness—and his boldness in fighting against it.

The sinister forces that generally flee the daylight penetrate the peaceable life of young Jim Hawkins. A succession of seafaring ruffians, each more rotten than the previous—Billy Bones, Black Dog, Blind Pew—arrive at his father’s inn, and bring with them terror and bloodshed, as they pursue the notorious pirate Captain Flint’s buried treasure.

Pelf, loot, plunder: That is what pirates live and die for. But this fascination with riches infects the good men whom Jim knows, and with Flint’s treasure map in their possession a select group of them heads out to sea in quest of a fortune.

Algis Valiunas