Chesil Beach in Dorset is a spectacular bank of pebbles stretching for nearly twenty miles along the Dorset coast, running in a north-easterly direction from south of Weymouth. Behind it for part of its length is a freshwater lagoon called the Fleet. I have happy memories camping near Fleet village with my young son in the early nineties, exploring the area and visiting Portland Bill and Weymouth. But it hasn't always been known solely as a holiday area: in the 18th century smuggling was rife, as elsewhere on the British coast, and Moonfleet portrays -- with only a little romanticism -- the kind of activities in which smugglers were involved in this part of Dorset.Written fifteen years after Treasure Island, Moonfleet superficially resembles that earlier adventure story: both are set in the 18th century, both have a young protagonist falling under the spell of a charismatic father-figure, both involve a search for ill-gotten treasure -- the location of which is indicated by the chance discovery of a document -- and feature an inn and an overseas voyage, though one features pirates and the other smugglers. But there are differences: for example, while Treasure Island includes first-person narrative from Dr Livesey as well as Jim Hawkins, Moonfleet is told entirely from the point of view of John Trenchard, who is just fifteen when the story opens; and though Stevenson sets his tale in fictional locations (I don't count Bristol because its description lacks any real local colour) Falkner bases his settings on real localities with fictional names -- Moonfleet is East Fleet, the Snout is Portland Bill, the castle on the Isle of Wight is Carisbrooke -- though I've not yet been able to discover if Ymeguen near the Dutch town of The Hague is entirely made up.Orphan John Trenchard, brought up in Moonfleet village by his humourless aunt, forms an attachment with innkeeper Elzevir Block, whose own son has been killed during a smuggling operation. Attending lessons given by Parson Glennie, John is much taken with Grace Maskew, whose father had fired the fatal shot. We hear a lot about the ghost of local worthy John Mohune, nicknamed Blackbeard, who had been involved in the betrayal of Charles I a century before when the king was attempting escape from the Isle of Wight. John discovers that the noises from the crypt of the local church aren't those made by Blackbeard's unquiet spirit but by smugglers concealing spirit of a different kind. The crypt also holds the coffin of this same Blackbeard (not the Blackbeard, who was really Edward Teach from Bristol) and the secret of a missing treasure reportedly given to Blackbeard to allow the king to flee prison. Needless to say, our young hero gets involved with the smugglers, being himself forced to flee capture and undertake a journey that takes him to Wight, thence to Holland, followed then by a spectacular shipwreck.Moonfleet fully deserves it reputation as a children's classic. It's hard not to be sympathetic to the narrator, who generally seems a good egg even when involved in illicit activities (and likely to profit from them). I also get the impression that the author invested much of himself in the characters: after all, he too is called John, Grace is a family name (borne by his sister Mary Grace and his mother Elizabeth Grace Meade) and the headmaster of his first school was called Ratsey Maskew (after whom two Moonfleet characters took their names). Falkner himself is a fascinating personage, incidentally, as a glance at his biography shows.As well as a sympathetic lead, this tale of derring-do is gripping almost from first to last. We get a lot of circumstantial detail that creates verisimilitude, whether it's a clear timeline, a sense of landscape or the manners and customs of the period. Life is shown as hard -- the threat of flood or shipwreck due to bad weather, loss of livelihood from vindictive actions by third parties, death by misadventure, ambush or capital punishment, and even wrongful imprisonment. This being a traditional novel for juveniles there is a happy ending (a little too pat for my taste) and even the hint of young love, something Stevenson conspicuously avoided in Treasure Island. Roger Lancelyn Green reminds us (in Tellers of Tales: children's books & their authors from 1800-1968, Kaye & Ward 1969) that Falkner made just one attempt to write "a boy's book in the tradition of Treasure Island", adding, rather grudgingly I think, that it "still has its admirers". Perhaps Sky 1's attempt to match their recent success in adapting Stevenson's pirate novel for the small screen with their new production of Moonfleet will attract new admirers.By the way, Fritz Lang's 1955 film of the same name bears very little resemblance to Falkner's novel, its noir look little compensating for its gross liberties with plot and characters; it seems to me to owe a lot to Russell Thorndike's Doctor Syn novels (a character I remember from the 1963 Disney film Dr Syn, Alias the Scarecrow) in which a Sussex worthy is secretly involved in smuggling. As a further aside, the Doctor Syn smuggling scenario must surely have been an influence on Joan Aiken's The Cuckoo Tree (1971), featuring as it does resourceful smugglers and local nobility and set not too far from Romney Marsh, Christopher Syn's home turf.http://wp.me/p2oNj1-yH
tEl primo perdido y casi olvidado de ‘La Isla del Tesoro’. Moonfleet es una clásica novela victoriana dirigida a los ‘mancebos belicosos’ y a los ‘muchachos de buena voluntad’. Aquella época imperial, cuyo código de conducta consagrara Kipling en el poema ‘Si..’, nos dio espléndidos ejemplos de este tipo de historias formativas donde la intención siempre era exhortar a una juventud a conducirse con estándares de estoicismo, bonhomía, galantería, brío, garbo y demás. Lo curioso de esta novela y de su referente estilístico, es que sendas figuras mentoras a los protagonistas resultaran ser, si no antihéroes, sí personajes al margen de la ley. En el caso de la de Stevenson, la amoralidad es muchísimo más marcada que en Moonfleet, novela cuya figura paternal es la de un tipo bronco y comprensivo, pero que al final es un contrabandista. En el caso de la obra que nos ocupa, lo más probable es que esto venga de una sincera imitación de La Isla del Tesoro. La búsqueda del tesoro, un mapa cifrado, una la figura rabiosa de siglos atrás que depositó el secreto para que el protagonista lo descubra, el elemento marítimo (poco, pero ahí está) y el peligro latente aparecen todos en la trama.Siendo así, tiendo a calificar a ‘Moonfleet’ como una muy buena (casi excelente) muestra de estas aventuras de formación. Y está por encima de obras más sensibleras y empalagosas como La Isla de Coral o Capitanes Intrépidos porque el objetivo moralizante no es manifiesto. También, a pesar de que fuera de la Commonwealth casi nadie ha oído hablar de esta novela, logra bien algo que considero notoriamente importante en cualquier pieza de ficción y en este caso es un buen nivel de iconografía propia. (Hablo mucho del recurrente motivo de la ‘Y’).Hay un par de puntos menos. Uno es la caricaturización de uno de los dos villanos de esta novela: un mercader judío. Por la época se entiende, pero aún así por estos tiempos esto se considera una muestra de antisemitismo. El otro es un pecado más culposo de esta novela: ese ritmo que va tan bien marcado hasta la llegada de los protagonistas a La Haya que se convierte de pronto en un clímax atrabancado y apresurado. El Deus Ex Machina del desenlace puedo llegar a perdonarlo, pero difícilmente si es para generar un trompicón con una falla de ritmo.De cualquier modo, las bondades aventajan con mucho a los defectos y esta novela puede, con el respectivo descargo de responsabilidad por la caricatura, seguirse impartiendo a la muchachada contemporánea como un ejemplo de aventura y de las ‘buenas doctrinas’.
What do You think about Moonfleet (1995)?
A Blast from the PastNumber me among the many who read this book in grade school back in the late 60's or 70's and the name stuck with me through the years.Later as an adult, I returned to this book to read it anew and experience the magic again.Yes, this is book designed for the younger reader. But as is the case with most well written books, all ages will find something to take away. Treasure Island, Kidnapped etc. are all of the same genre, but what makes Moonfleet unique is the tight identification of the young protagonist John Trenchard and the first person telling which brings the reader into seeing and experiencing it though his eyes.For a book published in 1898 and set in 1757 and following, that youth in the 60's would find it so fascinating and real is a testament to the talent of Falkner.Timeless. Engaging. Intriguing. Fantastic!Did I mention that I like it and recommend it heartily?
—Bart Breen
There's a reason some books are classics: more than a century after it was written, 250 years past the time it commemorates, Moonfleet still drags the reader into the story as remorselessly as the undertow that pulls shipwrecked sailors from the shingle of Moonfleet beach. The story is always bracketed with Treasure Island and, no mean praise, Falkner's tale stands comparison with Robert Louis Stevenson. Elzevir Block might, at heart, be less ruthless than Long John Silver, but the hero, John Trenchard, falls much further into evil than Jim Hawkins, seduced by a gem that proves as alluring, and almost as deadly, as the ring in The Lord of The Rings. The climax owes much to the Victorian tendency to tidy things up with unlikely coincidences, but having travelled through trial and tribulation with Block and Trenchard, the reader cannot demur at their final return to Moonfleet. A wonderful book.
—Edoardo Albert
EX-BOOKWORM GROUP REVIEWI wasn’t really aware of Moonfleet until Baz suggested it as our February choice. It is a wonder I hadn’t come across it before, and read it, because I was an avid reader as a child, the best customer at the village library. I certainly wasn’t averse to reading adventure stories, even ones for boys. I remember reading Coral Island and even King Solomon’s Mines when I was quite young. But there it is, I missed it, and I had to wait until I was 57 and three quarters to discover it courtesy of Baz. I thought it was a very good story of its type, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It is a very English story, one that has us rooting for the underdogs, even if they are criminals, much like Robin Hood. Those in authority are portrayed as horrible and evil people, while the lumpen masses (a word which I learned via FreeRice means dispossessed, not rough and stupid) display excellent qualities of bravery, loyalty and simple faith. It’s the sort of story we all recognise, even if the characters and locations change. A socialist sort of story, for all that it was chosen by Baz. I liked it. I loved Moonfleet itself, with the Why Not, all the characters, and the creepy churchyard. I was surprised to find that it is a real place because I thought the author had made it all up. I suppose the sort of place where generation after generation of the same families have lived together, and your great grandfather knew my great grandfather, is gone for ever. I was brought up in a village much like this, though a much bigger one. Still, there were legends and quite some superstition. My village was inland, and I think Moonfleet’s proximity to the sea, with its mists and tides and coves and caves, made it a perfect setting for this very exciting tale. The characters in the book were clearly on one side or the other, though not of the law, but of good and evil. There were plenty of contrasts to point up the sort of qualities that are admirable, it was very black and white. Maybe a bit too black and white. Maskew, for example, seems completely vicious and horrible, yet was bringing up a daughter who is sweetness and womanly virtue personified (and not much else). Elzevir is brave and loyal, but would clearly have shot Maskew and maybe even been glad of it in revenge for his son’s death. But there is no need for any subtlety in an adventure story for children who aren’t perhaps yet mature enough to appreciate it. Similarly, it didn’t matter if there were coincidences, or solutions coming too easily (Carisbrooke Castle, for instance) when they were required to keep the story moving at a fast pace. I thought there was quite a bit of humour in Moonfleet, though I can’t think of any examples now. Overall, it was well written and the author kept the excitement going throughout. Since he had chosen to have John Trenchard as the narrator, we knew from the outset that he had survived to tell the tale, but there was enough suspense in the how he survived. The only thing I did not like was the little quotes and poems at the beginning of the chapters that did not seem to me to add any value, except to demonstrate how well read the author was. So, to sum up, I liked Moonfleet a lot and I am glad to have read it, even at my advanced age! It was also very restful to have a short book that kept moving without yawns. Despite its brevity, it was a very satisfying read.
—Hilary G
