Captain Morgan and the Pirate Treasure

The T. Llew Jones centenary year has given impetus to the re-issue of many of his children’s books, including this one, in a new translation by Catrin Gerallt.The novel is based on the exploits of Harry Morgan, a 17th-century Welsh adventurer and pirate who became a legend in his lifetime for his daring raids on the Spanish in the West Indies, which earned him a knighthood from Charles II. Ieuan, a young lad from Abergavenny, has a chance meeting with the fierce and charismatic Morgan, which leads to his accompanying the buccaneer on a voyage fraught with danger.This is not a story for the faint-hearted. Not only are the adult characters revengeful and violent but Ieuan finds himself in a desperate struggle for survival and becomes a killer himself. For readers who enjoy a fast paced and exciting story, though, there is plenty to enjoy. Morgan’s accomplices are a bizarre and ghastly collection, not to be met with on a dark night!Catrin Gerallt’s translation is pellucid and fluent; the reader is never aware of reading something in translation. Events move swiftly; description is economical but effective. The story clearly owes a good deal to R. L. Stevenson’s classic, Treasure Island, but this novel is an easier read for an upper primary school readership.Much has changed in the half century since this story first appeared but its undiluted escapism is the perfect antidote to the modern focus on domestic angst and the problems of growing up. – Wendy Crockett @

T. Llew Jones (1915-2009) was a poet and one of Wales’s most popular children’s authors. A prolific writer, he wrote more than 50 books, 35 of them for children. Some of his work were also adapted for the television which were shown all over the world, including Chile, South Africa, Australia and Germany.

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