A quarter century before _Lord of the Flies_, Richard Hughes published this chilling tale of children's amorality set in the early 19th century. The five young Bas-Thorntons live on the family's run-down sugar plantation in Jamaica until a slight earthquake, a hurricane, and the much more devastating (to them) death of their cat inspires their parents to send them back to England for school. But their ship is attacked by pirates off the coast of Cuba and the children (along with two creole neighbor kids) end up on the pirates' ship. Primitive drives and forces are unleashed in the kids, and the misunderstandings and mutual exploitations of the children and their captors (who come across as inept and innocent compared to the fierce machinations of the children) make for very black comedy indeed. Hughes used the new theories of Freud to rip the sentimental Victorian notion of the innocence of children. Not well known today, this book was voted one of the top 100 novels of the 20th century by Random House/Modern Library. (Someone should make a movie of it!)
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The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus