In the Sargasso Sea

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In the Sargasso Sea is a children's novel (1898) and is a unique blend of adventure story and a hybrid of Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island themes. While excellent children's literature, it is extraordinarily hard to find. Recently, Kessinger Publishing's Rare Reprints has re-issued this forgotten treasure. Janvier's writing shows a weakness in character dialogue but has a tremendous narrative skill and imagery usage. The protagonist, Roger Stetworth, naïvely signs aboard a slaver the "Golden Hind" captained by Luke Chilton. When Chilton demands that Roger "sign aboard" he refuses and is clubbed on the head and thrown overboard. He is rescued by the "Hurst Castle" and doctored by a painfully stereotyped Irishman. The "Hurst Castle" is abandoned but does not founder in a gale and the crew accidentally leave Stetworth marooned aboard. The ship drifts into the center of the Sargasso Sea where Stetworth finds himself in a ships' graveyard. The power of Janiver's work shines through here as he uses stunning images of abandoned and deserted hulks, desperate and violent survivors of previous shipwrecks that still inhabit the forgotten ships. Most vivid is his discovery of an old slave galley. Stetworth must rely on his own ingenuity to get free from the choking sargasso weeds.