Fortune and Glory

by David McIntee

  Almost anything, if it’s of value to science, a culture, or even a person, can be treasure, especially if it’s lost. Even languages have been lost and found over the centuries, and a last native speaker of a language could be an invaluable treasure, as could the patient zero of a disease outbreak, or people with immunity factors that can be replicated for the fight against disease.

  Documents and books, lost Shakespeare folios and suchlike can also be fantastically valuable finds. Treasure has never just been gold and silver and precious stones; it always has been, and always will be, something more than that.

  TEN BOOKS WORTH HUNTING

  Ten books about or featuring treasure hunting worth reading – e.g. Treasure Island, King Solomon’s Mines, maybe a non-fiction or two as well.

  TREASURE ISLAND BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  As with many Victorian (and early 20th century) novels, this classic tale of buried pirate treasure was originally published as a serial, in the children’s magazine Young Folks, in 1881 and 1882, before being published as a book in 1883.

  Although the magazine was in what publishing would now call the YA market, the novel doesn’t read as being aimed at children. Rather it’s a crisp adventure with a literal boatload of memorable classic characters, based on a mix of nautical folklore, pirate history and Stevenson’s own imagination, inspired by childhood walks around islands.

  It’s a vital story in the history of treasure hunting, because it introduces so many elements that we find familiar, such as pirates burying their loot, peg-legged villains, parrots and so on. It’s also very good; there’s a reason why it hasn’t been out of print in 200 years, and has had so many screen adaptations, as well as being so influential in later years. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing a treat.

  KING SOLOMON’S MINES BY H. RIDER HAGGARD

  Another hugely influential Victorian adventure – this one published as a hardback book from the outset (in 1885), rather than being serialized first. It works as a wildlife travelogue, adventure tale and treasure-hunt story all in one.

  Written as British exploration peaked, it’s a memorable adventure flushed with the sensations of Africa, and features the memorable big-game hunter Allan Quatermain, who is a prototype for the sort of knight-errant adventurer that action and adventure stories so depend on. It’s also somewhat racist and, unfortunately, its attempts to be fair in this regard really throw the failures more into relief, but this is perhaps inevitable given the era in which it was written.

  Like Treasure Island, it introduces many tropes of the genre, such as the long travel sections and dangers en route. It also shares another very important connection with Stevenson’s book: Haggard’s brother had bet him five shillings that he couldn’t write and publish a book that would capture the audience and attention of Treasure Island. Henry won the bet, though he did so by being inspired by a travel memoir, Through Maasai Land by Scottish explorer Joseph Thomson, which had come out in January. This led some to accuse him of plagiarism, but since Haggard was writing fiction, it’d perhaps be well enough to call it research.

  TREASURE BY CLIVE CUSSLER

  Actually, most of Cussler’s action-adventure novels have a pretty similar formula, involving a historical shipwreck or disappearance, some sort of modern supervillain with a global (and usually environmentally themed) threat, and a lost ancient treasure, which is somehow connected to both of those elements.

  This particular novel is a good standalone example of the format and rollicking good fun too. Treasure-wise, it includes the contents of the Library of Alexandria and Aztecs.

  THE SIGN AND THE SEAL BY GRAHAM HANCOCK

  This was one of the first books to make the connection between Axum in Ethiopia and the Ark of the Covenant. It also – along with The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail – kick-started the genre of gold-embossed paperbacks telling tales of ancient historical conspiracies and lost religious secrets/artefacts.

  Unlike The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, this book is mainly about a single artefact, and it actually works well in terms of being a travelogue through Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. Whatever you think of the likelihood of the Ark being in Ethiopia, or any of the pseudohistory that the author later got into, this is one of the most readable tales of someone travelling through distant parts of the world in search of a piece of history.

  CAPTAIN KIDD AND HIS SKELETON ISLAND BY H. T. WILKINS

  Harold Thomas Wilkins wrote quite a few books about adventuring and treasure-hunting throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but this is the one that proved both most popular and most influential in the treasure-hunting community.

  As the title implies, it’s a tale of the notorious Captain Kidd and his buried treasure, first published in 1935, and it inspired many a reader to go hunting for pirate treasure simply by virtue of telling an exciting story of pirates and treasure, and including maps purporting to show where Kidd buried still-undiscovered loot. People have been searching for the true location of ‘Skeleton Island’ ever since, and it has inspired quite a few fictional epics (such as the Isla de los Muertos in the Pirates of the Caribbean films).

  Of course, Wilkins was quite open about these island maps being fictional, to add to the excitement of the story, but this hasn’t stopped people from believing that they’re tweaked versions of a real place – and that they were based upon treasure maps found hidden in a piece of furniture at Palmer’s Pirate Museum in Eastbourne. The island is actually a composite of several places around the world, arranged to make a suitably exciting location, but the book is worth tracking down as a prime example of pirate treasure lore. And, who knows, perhaps it is really intended as a disguised visual code to a real location…

  THE SEA HUNTERS BY CLIVE CUSSLER

  Speaking of Cussler, it’s also worth checking out both this book and its sequel, The Sea Hunters II, which are collections of nonfiction tales of his nonprofit company’s exploits in searching for historical shipwrecks.

  Among their discoveries are the Confederate submarine CSS Hunley, and the last resting place of the legendary Mary Celeste. Few of the expeditions dealt with actual treasure in the gold, silver and jewels sense, but they are all interesting and readable accounts of the searches for historically valuable vessels, and make an interesting crossover between fictional and real treasure hunting. Thankfully Cussler and his team didn’t have to deal with would-be dictators, terrorists with WMDs, or any of those obstacles that his fictional hero, Dirk Pitt, has to deal with when treasure hunting. They do encounter natural and environmental obstacles, however, similar to those faced by the characters in his novels, and so it’s interesting to see a comparison of those.

  The books also spawned a National Geographic TV series that ran from 2002–06.

  THE QUEST FOR THE GOLDEN HARE BY BAMBER GASGCOINE

  Published in 1983, this is actually the behind the scenes story of an intentional modern treasure hunt, which spawned a whole genre. Basically, Gasgcoine, famous in the UK as host of the TV quiz University Challenge, was the independent witness and referee of the hunt for a golden pendant in the shape of a hare, which was buried in the UK in 1979 by Kit Williams, the author and illustrator of a book called Masquerade. The book contained a series of paintings that could be interpreted to provide clues to the location of the hare.

  This book, however, is the tale of how the project came about, how it was run, and all the fun that ensued afterwards, including accusations of cheating and insider knowledge by the person who claimed the prize, and how some completely different people reached the correct solution.

  As well as being a good background on the creation of the book, it’s also a fascinating look at how the treasure bug grabs people, as some readers continued to search for the prize even after it had been awarded, and the original book had been reprinted with the solution and the name of the prizewinner!

  THE SECRET BY BYRON PREISS

  This is one of those armchair treasure-hunt books, the genre of which was sparked by Masque
rade. The difference is that this American version, published in 1982, is still looking for solutions.

  Inspired by the success of Masquerade, Preiss hid 12 ceramic keys in cities around the US, and each key found could be handed in and exchanged for jewellery to the value of $1,000. He created a book of poems illustrated by John Jude Palencar, and each illustrated poem would lead to the location of one of the keys. This was published in 1982, and the first key was found in Chicago in 1984. The second key was found in Cleveland 20 years later, in 2004. Preiss died in a car crash the following year, without ever having told anyone else the locations of the remaining ten keys.

  Those keys are still out there, so if you fancy trying your luck at hunting the oldest armchair treasure…

  THE MONUMENTS MEN BY ROBERT EDSEL

  This book – which is a lot more accurate than the film of the same name – tells the story of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives programme run by the US military in World War II. Although not intended as a treasure-hunting group – their remit was closer to a police unit, in that they were sent to preserve cultural treasures in war zones, and try to recover stolen objects – the book is well worth a read from a treasure-hunting viewpoint, simply because this group ended up being the main people who discovered Nazi hoards dotted around Germany.

  TRUE TALES OF BURIED TREASURE BY EDWARD ROWE SNOW

  Originally written at the end of the 1940s, this covers 17 treasure subjects, concentrating on those based along the US East Coast. It introduced Oak Island to the general populace, and also has fun pieces on various pirates (having followed on from Snow’s earlier book, True Tales of Pirates and Their Gold), Blackbeard and Henry Morgan being particularly charged with burying piles of loot.

  Much of it has subsequently proved out of date, and some of the treasures in it have been found since, but it’s still a lovely nostalgic piece that inspired many treasure hunters of the past few decades. The highlight is the final chapter in which Snow gives his own experience in recovering buried treasure from Strong Island off Massachusetts.

  TEN MOVIES WORTH HUNTING

  RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

  The definitive treasure-hunting movie. Well, really you could take this to mean the Indiana Jones movies as a series. Of course this movie, and later its spinoffs and sequels, really launched a new era of public love for exploits involved in digging up lost historic treasures.

  Famously, the tone and style were meant to pay homage to adventure serials of the 1930s and 1940s, which often dealt with two-fisted tough guys in search of stolen gold, either looted by gangsters, or held in distant cities ruled by ancient cults. Those original vintage flicks tended to feature heroes who were pretty much cowboys or frontier explorers with the serial numbers filed off, and a different jacket and hat. Raiders manages to marry that tone up with a more modern viewpoint, in that the hero is a professor of archaeology, which in theory would entail him having spent years doing really boring excavations somewhere off-screen.

  Indy’s adventures, however, somehow just hit that right mix of period pulp, modern storytelling, myth, archaeology and adventure, which makes everybody able to imagine themselves going off on their own and beating the bad guys to a famous priceless treasure, in a world that was a little simpler and more clear-cut.

  NATIONAL TREASURE

  This movie and its sequel, Book of Secrets, both involve their characters in place-to-place treasure hunts and puzzle-solving. In this sense, the films echo the sort of tone that the creators of The Beale Papers were aiming for, blending a mix of historical tease, brain-bending and straightforward running and dodging.

  In many ways the first film prefigures the sort of historical conspiracy treasure hunting movies that Dan Brown and his imitators have subsequently turned into a global brand, and which has given the US something of a historical treasure mythos to play with.

  It’s also – the first film in particular – good fun, with all the elements you could want from a light-hearted adventure, including witty banter, chases and Sean Bean (spoiler) not dying.

  PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

  The original movie and pretty definitely not the sequels, may be the definitive pirate treasure movie for the modern age. On the one hand it’s a swashbuckling seaborne action romance in the mould of the classic Hollywood swashbucklers (especially The Crimson Pirate, from which it borrows a number of scenes outright, but which isn’t a treasure-related movie), on the other hand it’s a ghost story/zombie adventure, and, on the gripping hand, it’s a treasure movie in the vein of Stevenson’s Treasure Island, with a search and race for a cache of (cursed) Aztec gold in a vault in a lost island.

  What could be more piratey or treasurey than that? Not a lot, and both of those tropes still have huge power to hold the attention of audiences, as the massive success of the film and its sequels has shown.

  THE GOONIES

  Another movie about about pirate treasure, but in a different way. This is one of those 1980s coming-of-age kids’ adventure movies that is probably ingrained into the psyche of a whole generation.

  It’s a modern-day tale of a group of kids searching for old pirate treasure, with the aid of puzzles and treasure maps, and, to be honest, it’s a bit saccharine in that post-ET Spielbergian Hollywood way, but it does also catch the mood of childhood excitement for tales of pirates and buried treasure.

  AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD

  A film about the Spanish search for El Dorado, it’s not really a treasure movie, or even really a treasure-hunting movie, but a historical epic about the Conquistadores in South America.

  It’s also a good exploration of obsession and single-mindedness under duress. Which isn’t really that surprising when you consider that this is a collaboration between director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski, both of whom are legendary for being obsessive, and occasionally getting mad enough with each other on set that they tried to kill each other.

  It’s definitely more a drama about endurance than an action adventure, but it really carries the tone and atmosphere of how things were for the European explorers who came to plunder the New World. It very much gets into the heads of these people and gives a good understanding of what drove this invasion and occupation.

  It’s also gorgeously filmed too, which is another good reason for checking it out.

  KING SOLOMON’S MINES

  This book has been filmed plenty of times, and some of these movies are better than others. The 1937 version starring Cedric Hardwicke and Paul Robeson is usually referred to as the most faithful to Haggard’s book, though the musical interludes with Robeson say otherwise. Allan Quatermain himself, however, is played much more faithfully by Hardwicke than by anyone who followed (even though he’s called ‘Quartermain’ here). This version also introduces the idea of a missing man’s daughter requiring a guide for an expedition, rather than his brother; this change persisting in basically all the screen versions of the story.

  Most critics rate Stewart Granger’s 1950 version – filmed in three African countries, rather than a British backlot – as the best version, even though it drifts further from the source material, especially in its portrayal of Quatermain. It certainly has spectacle, and some quality actors, but is perhaps rather slow for a modern audience. Fast cutting isn’t everything, however, and while the 1950 version departs from the book’s details, it does have the right atmosphere and feel to live up to Haggard’s novel.

  None of these departures from the book are anything like as extreme as the changes in the cheesy 1980s version with Richard Chamberlain. It’s actually an updating of the story, albeit staying with a period setting, bringing the tale up from the 1880s to 1913, with the kaiser’s army in East Africa as the bad guys. Despite a critical mauling this does have some positive points to being a bargain Indiana Jones knockoff. The slight update in time works well, still being far enough back to have that almost Victorian setting. Chamberlain’s Quatermain is Indy’s poorer relation, but likeable e
nough to lead a chase for the treasure and, overall it is a cheerful and tongue-in-cheek piece of 1980s fun. It also has a lovely jaunty musical score from Jerry Goldsmith, and plenty of actual treasure to be found in the mines themselves.

  Stay well away from the sequel, though.

  TREASURE ISLAND

  Another classic book that has been repeatedly filmed, starting with a silent version in 1918, acted by children (it was part of a series of Fox productions acted by children, called the Sunset Kiddies series), and is itself – like a second silent version, starring Lon Chaney – now a lost film, which is a sort of treasure in its own right.

  The most famous, and critically acclaimed version is Disney’s 1950 film, starring Robert Newton as Long John Silver. This is a good adaptation, capturing the feel of Stevenson’s novel, and is also worth taking a look at from a perspective of cinema history, as it was the first entirely live-action Disney feature film. In fact Robert Newton made such an impression as Long John Silver in this film that not only did he get a sequel movie, Long John Silver, but also the first TV series based on the franchise, Long John Silver, shot in colour in Australia in 1958. Actors in pirate movies ever since have emulated his accent (most notably Geoffrey Rush as Hector Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

  Even the Muppets have had a go at this one, with The Muppet Treasure Island, which is a surprisingly good musical comedy version, mixing human and muppet casts, with Tim Curry hamming it up as Long John Silver.

  KUMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER

  This a new darling of the awards and festival circuit. In this Japanese coming-of-age drama, the titular character sees a movie about a Wild West outlaw who buries his loot and decides to travel to America to look for it.