The Pirate of Panama: A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure

Raine, William MacLeod, 1871-1954Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8

Word count: 343K words
Chapters: 35

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Pirate of Panama: A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure by RaineAuthor: Raine, William MacLeod, 1871-1954,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Sep 24, 2007

Editor's review

A sea adventure novel by William MacLeod Raine, centered on a contest over buried treasure. Known for his Western and frontier fiction, Raine brings the same hard-edged style to the sea: voyage, pursuit, confrontation, and reversal build layer upon layer, tightly paced and vividly staged. The book follows the classic treasure-hunt framework—a clue to the hoard, a party of companions each with their own designs, and ever-closing threats—but handles character motives with more maturity than the typical juvenile adventure, and the line between good and evil is not entirely clear-cut. As a public-domain ebook, it is also a fitting sample of early twentieth-century American popular adventure fiction. It suits readers who want a rousing story for the commute or a holiday, and those drawn to seafaring subjects and the treasure-hunt motif. Nautical terms and old-fashioned slang are plentiful; a brief pause on first reading is enough—there is no need to get bogged down in details.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers of adventure fiction who enjoy seafaring, treasure hunting, and pursuit
Readers curious about the style of early twentieth-century American popular literature
Casual readers seeking a tightly paced read for holidays or commutes
Readers interested in maritime settings and descriptions of shipboard life

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer nuanced psychological portraiture and slow-paced literary fiction
People with little patience for nautical terminology and old-fashioned expressions, who give up easily
Readers expecting strict historical accuracy or a practical guide to seamanship

Reading tips

First grasp the two threads—the treasure clue and the characters' allegiances; skip nautical details you don't understand, as they don't affect the main plot
When characters' positions shift, jot down who holds what information; this helps you see the later reversals clearly
To savor the period style, read one or two sea-confrontation passages closely and speed through the rest as the plot advances

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

There is a lot of nautical terminology in the book. Will it affect my understanding of the plot?

Somewhat, but don't worry. Nautical terms mainly build atmosphere and a sense of realism; the core plot still revolves around the contest for the treasure and the characters' relationships. When you meet unfamiliar terms, you can skim past them and follow the characters' actions and dialogue—the main thread remains clear.

How is this book different from common juvenile treasure-hunt stories?

Compared with juvenile adventures with clear-cut good and evil, this book gives its characters more complex motives: companions cooperate but also scheme against one another, and the line between good and evil is less absolute. Combined with the author's customary hard-edged style, the overall tone is closer to popular adult adventure fiction.

Is it suitable as English-learning material?

It can serve as advanced material. The language is generally fluent and strongly narrative, making it easy to keep reading; but old-fashioned slang and nautical vocabulary will pose obstacles for beginners. It is best suited to readers with a solid English foundation who want to expand their reading volume, with a dictionary at hand for key words.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Raine, William MacLeod, 1871-1954 Author

William MacLeod Raine (1871–1954) was an American writer of Western fiction. He wrote prolifically, producing many popular novels set on the American frontier, and this site holds twenty-two of his works. Raine’s fiction focuses largely on life in the border regions of Texas, Montana, New Mexico, and the Yukon, often featuring rangers, sheriffs, frontiersmen, and settlers, with plots centered on frontier order, adventure, and conflict. His style is accessible and fast-paced, emphasizing storytelling and a strong sense of place. Representative works include A Texas Ranger, The Yukon Trail: A Tale of the North, Ridgway of Montana, and The Sheriff’s Son. Public information about the details of his life is limited, so no speculation is offered here.