Best 1943 Adventures (7)
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June 16, 2018
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1943 adventure novels. Happy 75th anniversary!
Hergé‘s Tintin adventure Le Trésor De Rackham Le Rouge (Red Rackham’s Treasure, serialized 1943; as a color album, 1944).
Following clues that they’ve pieced together — over the course of the previous Tintin adventure, The Secret of the Unicorn — Tintin and Captain Haddock launch an expedition to the Caribbean to locate the wreck of Sir Francis Haddock’s ship, The Unicorn, and the pirate Red Rackham’s lost treasure. Cuthbert Calculus, a brilliant but difficult inventor making his first appearance here, smuggles himself — and his shark-shaped submarine — along for the ride. Although they discover some amazing artifacts — a native carving of Sir Francis; a strongbox of documents revealing that Captain Haddock’s ancestor owned Marlinspike Hall (which featured in The Secret of the Unicorn), and the figurehead of The Unicorn itself — there’s no treasure. Have they misinterpreted Sir Francis’s clues?
Fun facts: Serialized in Le Soir, Belgium’s leading francophone newspaper, which — during the German occupation of Belgium — supported the German war effort. Steven Spielberg adapted this story arc, along with The Crab with the Golden Claws, as the 2011 film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.
JOSH GLENN’S *BEST ADVENTURES* LISTS: BEST 250 ADVENTURES OF THE 20TH CENTURY | 100 BEST OUGHTS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST RADIUM AGE (PROTO-)SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TEENS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TWENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST THIRTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST GOLDEN AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FORTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FIFTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SIXTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST NEW WAVE SCI FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SEVENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST EIGHTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST DIAMOND AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST NINETIES ADVENTURES (in progress) | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | NOTES ON 21st-CENTURY ADVENTURES.