According to David Thorburn, Conrad intended for "The Rescue" to be a boys' book, similar to Robert Louis Stevenson's works. Thorburn quotes Garnett's "Letters from Conrad", “I want to make it a kind of glorified book for boys – you know. No analysis. No damned mouthing. Pictures – pictures – pictures. That's what I want to do”. Thorburn does not think highly of "The Rescue" or of Conrad's “grandiose subtitles”; when comparing "The Rescue" to other works, he briefly mentions it as one of the “disappointing novels” and claims that the excess titling was an expression of weakness.