Finding Treasure in Old Stories?🤠💰🤑

King Solomon's Mines

I was surprised to read that Sir Henry Rider Haggard wrote 'King Solomon's Mines' as a result of a five-shilling wager with his brother, who said that he could not write a novel half as good as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883).

Personally, having read both books recently, I think Henry lost the bet to his brother;-)

I found 'King Solomon's Mines' rather boring, but it was interesting as far as the attitudes of the times were back then to shooting elephants for their ivory, eating giraffe meat, colonizing the "savages" and finding treasure.

King Solomon's Mines (1950)

The 1950 movie based on the book isn't much better, and they even wreck the story by putting a white rich woman, played by Deborah Kerr into the movie, who funds the expedition and tags along for the romantic Hollywood eye candy love interest, which isn't part of the original story.

Obviously, Treasure Island is about finding treasure, as is Mark Twain's story 'Tom Sawyer', a book I haven't read, but I did read his sequel about Huckleberry Finn, and if I had a dollar for every time the word "nigger" appears in that book I wouldn't need to find any treasure.

Was Treasure Island Based on a True Story from History?⛵🏝📖☠

Treasure Island by
Robert Louis Stevenson

I probably would never have read any of those books if I wasn't reading '1001 Books That You Must Read Before You Die' but I'm glad I did read them, as it gives me some perspective on the attitudes of the late 1800s and the pop-culture of the time, which has had huge ripple effects right through to now and beyond.

2023 Marks 50 Years Since Tom Sawyer the Musical Hit Cinema Screens?🎥📖

Ironically, I was sorting out donations at a thrift shop on Monday and came across a paperback version of 'Tom Sawyer', but that book wasn't on the 1001 books I must read list, and I have had enough book reading/listening and movie watching involving Tom and Huck to last me the rest of my life, I think.

I wouldn't mind reading a bit more about Mark Twain though, as long as he doesn't mention Tom and Huck.

And if Sir Henry Rider Haggard hadn't had written 'King Solomon's Mines' would we have had the Indiana Jones movies and books of today?

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

The Unpublished Novel, "Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings" Sometimes called "The Lost Indiana Jones Novel"?