Red Rackham’s Treasure (French: Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge) is the twelfth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a continuation of The Secret of the Unicorn, and is one of very few Tintin books to directly carry on the story of the preceding title. It is notable for the first appearance of the eccentric and deaf but ingenious Professor Cuthbert Calculus. According to Michael Farr’s Tintin: The Complete Companion, it is also the best-selling book in the Tintin series.

In The Secret of the Unicorn, Tintin and Captain Haddock discovered the location of the Unicorn, a pirate ship which was blown up in the West Indies by Captain Haddock’s ancestor Sir Francis Haddock in 1676. After destroying the vessel, Sir Francis fled to a nearby island. Tintin and Captain Haddock believe that the pirate’s treasure is in the remains of the sunken Unicorn.

Tintin and the Captain hire the Sirius, a boat under Haddock’s command, to search for the said treasure. As the crew prepare for the search, their plans are discovered and publicized by the press,…