Customer Reviews

JIM DAVIS

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you like Robert Louis Stevenson, you will thoroughly enjoy Masefield's Jim Davis. I first read this at age 14 (with some vocab help from dear old dad) and it remains one of the best books I have read in a long while. Being a history major and an english minor I found the prose of this book delightful and the historical significance astounding. If you are an adult who has read and re-read Stevenson too much and want the same genre but a different author/plot Jim Davis is the novel for you. If you have a child whom you wish to turn onto fine literature Jim Davis will grab your child's imagination and illustrate a grand adventure of pirates, smugglers, soldiers and gypsies for it. Any child (old or young) can relate to the stories narrator, this is a jewel of English literature. Another great Stevenson alternate is J. Meade Falkner's Moonfleet, it is a bit of an easier read than Jim Davis, but contains just as much adventure.

This story is set in early 19th century Devon, during the Napoleonic Wars. The narrator is a boy in his early teens, who by chance and high spirits falls in with a gang of smugglers bringing contraband by sea from France to England. It's a fast-moving story, in the tradition of R. L. Stevenson, and a good look at the history of the period along England's south coast too.

Masefield is usually classified as a poet, which he was, but he also wrote novels, among them this somewhat overlooked gem of adventure for boys. I found it quite charming and would recommend it to any boy who daydreams of going back in history and taking part in thrilling scrapes.

It is appropriate for anyone who loves action and adventure