When I was a boy, I loved the great adventure authors typically read, in my day, by adolescent males. You know the list; Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Vern, Tolkien, and the like. They transported me from my little pedestrian corner of the world to new exciting lands of adventure and glory. Although not as well known to the English-speaking world, Italian youth had their own weaver of adventurous tales, Emilio Salgari. 

Salgari was an industrious author who wrote over 85 novels with titles such as “The Black Corsair,” “The Pirates of Malaysia,” “Adventures in the Far West,” and “The Queen of the Caribbean.” These are fun novels filled with the exploits of heroes in exotic locales. Some critics claim that Sandokan, a recurring Salgari character, is the alter ego of Garibaldi. Like Garibaldi, Sandokan is a man of action who fought for the oppressed. At the same time, the women in Salgari’s books were both mod