Other editions of book The Mysterious Island

Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, a man who survived by himself for almost five years on an uninhabited Pacific island off the coast of Chile, Jules Verne’s page-turner The Mysterious Island is a tale of five men and a dog who escape Civil War Richmond in a balloon during a storm and land on a faraway and uncharted island where they must overcome nature’s harsh elements to create from scratch a civilization for themselves.Currently available only in an abridged 1970s translation and, in full, only in a dated nineteenth-century translation that is stuffy and limp, turning the muscular, breathless tone of the original into something overwrought and melodramatic, The Mysterious Island is restored here to its original robustness in Jordan Stump’s striking new rendition. This major re-presentation also features an Introduction by Caleb Carr, and over eighty illustrations reprinted from the original 1875 French edition.

"The Mysterious Island" is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874.The plot focuses on the adventures of five Americans on an uncharted island in the South Pacific.Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction.Translator:Frederic Amadeus Malleson(1819–1897)

How is this book unique? Free AudiobookIllustrations includedUnabridgedThe Mysterious Island (French: L'Île mystérieuse) is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, initially rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned With Uncle Robinson, seen as indicating the influence on the novel of Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. Verne developed a similar theme in his later novel, Godfrey Morgan (French: L'École des Robinsons, 1882).

During the American Civil War, five northern prisoners of war decide to escape, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, by hijacking a balloon. There is no safety visible beneath them, as the gas falls and the balloon loses altitude. The windswept, watery expanse presents not a single speck of solid surface upon which their anchor might hold. That they are riding in this gondola beneath the balloon is already an act of desperation -- for they are prisoners of war, who hit upon this mad scheme for aerial escape: the theft of the balloon moored and awaiting abatement of the storm, to ride with it directly up into those turbulent clouds! Through rare luck and ingenuity, the escapees manage to keep the balloon above the waves until a speck of land comes into sight, and within reach . . . a piece of uncharted and unknown land that promises safety and survival -- but which presents life-threatening challenges and holds at its heart a supreme mystery.

"Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne is subtitled Shipwrecked in the Air, The Abandoned and The Secret of the Island. The present translation is by Stephen W. White. It first appeared in the Evening Telegraph of Philadelphia, PA and was later published as an Evening Telegraph Reprint Book in 1876. English translators often altered their translations to suit current political views of Church and Empire. It is about six Northerns prisoners that flee Richmond during the American Civil War. Their escape is done by balloon and brings them to an inhabited island lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The book tells the tale of how these men survive.Jules Gabriel Verne (1828 – 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction.

Summary (differentiated book):- Original book from 1874- Book contains detailed biography of author- Includes authors photosBook details:The book tells the adventures of five American prisoners of war on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. Begining in the American Civil War, as famine and death ravage the city of Richmond, Virginia, five northern POWs decide to escape in a rather unusual way – by hijacking a balloon! This is only the beginning of their adventures...

On March 24, 1865, a balloon carrying five persons escaping from Richmond, capital of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, falls into the sea. Caught in a storm, the balloon had flown some seven thousand miles in five days. The five passengers are Captain Cyrus Harding, an engineer in General Grant's army; his black servant, Nebuchadnezzar, known as Neb; Gideon Spilett, a reporter; Jack Pencroft, a sailor; and Herbert Brown, the fifteen-year-old orphan son of one of Pencroft's former sea captains. The balloon falls near an uncharted island, and Harding, together with his dog, Top, is washed overboard. Once its load is lightened, the balloon then deposits the other travelers on the shore of the island. The next morning, Neb looks for his "master" while the others explore the island. The next day, Herbert, Pencroft, and Spilett take stock of their resources, which consist of the clothes they wear, a notebook, and a watch. They suddenly hear Top barking. The dog leads them to Captain Harding, who, having been unconscious, is at a loss to explain how he arrived at a place more than a mile away from the shore.

“Are we going up again?”“No. On the contrary; we are going down!”“Worse than that, Mr. Smith, we are falling!”“For God’s sake throw over all the ballast!”“The last sack is empty!”“And the balloon rises again?”“No!”“I hear the splashing waves!”“The sea is under us!”“It is not five hundred feet off!”Then a strong, clear voice shouted:—“Overboard with all we have, and God help us!”Such were the words which rang through the air above the vast wilderness of the Pacific, towards 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the 23d of March, 1865:—Doubtless, no one has forgotten that terrible northeast gale which vented its fury during the equinox of that year. It was a hurricane lasting without intermission from the 18th to the 26th of March. Covering a space of 1,800 miles, drawn obliquely to the equator, between the 35° of north latitude and 40° south, it occasioned immense destruction both in America and Europe and Asia. Cities in ruins, forests uprooted, shores devastated by the mountains of water hurled upon them, hundreds of shipwrecks, large tracts of territory desolated by the waterspouts which destroyed everything in their path, thousands of persons crushed to the earth or engulfed in the sea; such were the witnesses to its fury left behind by this terrible hurricane. It surpassed in disaster those storms which ravaged Havana and Guadeloupe in 1810 and 1825.While these catastrophes were taking place upon the land and the sea, a scene not less thrilling was enacting in the disordered heavens.A balloon, caught in the whirl of a column of air, borne like a ball on the summit of a waterspout, spinning around as in some aerial whirlpool, rushed through space with a velocity of ninety miles an hour. Below the balloon, dimly visible through the dense vapor, mingled with spray, which spread over the ocean, swung a basket containing five persons.This edition includes:- A complete biography of Jules Verne.- Table of contents with directs links to chapters.

In The Mysterious Island a group of men escape imprisonment during the American Civil War by stealing a balloon. Blown across the world, they are air-wrecked on a remote desert island. In a manner reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe, the men apply their scientific knowledge and technical skill to exploit the island s bountiful resources, eventually constructing a sophisticated society in miniature. The book is also an intriguing mystery story, for the island has a secret...