Books with title Penguin Island

When a bumbling holy man mistakenly baptizes a colony of penguins, God endows the animals with souls and their formerly peaceful community declines into a maelstrom of violence and sin. This witty allegory lampoons French history from ancient to modern times, taking satirical swipes at socialists, royalists, industrialists, militarists, and even the Dreyfus affair, and concluding with a remarkably prescient view of the future. Indeed, more than a hundred years after its initial publication, the story's insights into politics and society remain enduringly relevant. Poet, novelist, and journalist Anatole France (1844–1924) received the Nobel Prize in 1921 in recognition of his literary achievements. His writings reflect an ironic and skeptical point of view, and many of his works were placed on the Roman Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books. This edition of Penguin Island is enhanced with the original black-and-white images by noted illustrator Frank C. Papé.

Product Description Penguin Island is a satirical novel by Anatole France first published in 1908. The book details the history of the penguins and is written as a critique of human nature, and is also a satire on France's political history, including the Dreyfus affair. Morals, customs and laws are satirised within the context of the fictional land of Penguinia, where the animals were baptised erroneously by the myopic Abbot Maël. The book is ultimately concerned with the perfectibility of mankind. As soon as the Penguins are transformed into humans, they begin robbing and murdering each other. By the end of the book, a thriving civilization is destroyed by terrorist bombs.

Anatole France (Jacques Anatole François Thibault; 1844-1924. Member of the Académie Française. Awarded the Nobel Price for Literature in 1921. Penguin Island (1908) has been called "the best social satire ever written" (Toni Ungerer). The story takes place in Antarctica, where a fictional penguin population mirrors the foibles of human beings. With the devil's help, a missionary arrives in Antartica and baptizes the local penguins. With God's help, he then turns them into human beings. As a result, the penguins must now try to figure out how to live together and create a civilization. They experience their own barbaric Ancient Times and Middle Ages, and in their efforts to create a modern age, they undergo social conflicts and devastating wars. Written in the spirit of rationalism and enlightenment,Penguin Island is a wickedly funny, incisive portrait of religious fanatacism.

Preft uce i ,N spite of the apparent diversity of the amusements that seem to attract me, my life has but one object. It is wholly bent upon the accomplishment of one great scheme. I am writing the history of the Penguins. I labor sedulously at this task without allowing myself to be repelled by its frequent difficulties although at times these seem insuperable. I have delved into the ground in order to discover the buried remains of that people. Men sfirst books were stones, and I have studied the stones that can be regarded as the primitive annals of the Penguins. On the shore of the ocean I have ransacked a previously untouched tumulus, and in it I found, as usually happens, flint axes, bronze swords, Roman coins, and a twenty-sou piece bearing the effigy of Louis-P hilippe I., King of the French. For historical times, the chronicle of Johannes Talpa, a monk of the monastery of Beargarden, has been of great assistance to me. I steeped myself the more thoroughly in this author as no other source for the Penguin history of the Early Middle A ges has yet been discovered. We are richer for the period that begins with the thirteenth century, richer but not better off. It is extremely difficult to write history. We do not know exactly how things have happened, and the historians embarrassment increases with the abundance of documents at his disposal. When a fact is known through the evidence of a single person, it is admitted without much hesitation. Our perplexities begin when events are related by two or by several witnesses, for their evidence is always contradictory and always irreconcilable. It is true that the scientific reasons for preferring one piece of evidence to another are sometimes very strong, but they are never strong enough to outweigh our passions, our prejudices, our interests, or to overcome that levity of mind common to all grave men. It fo(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

Penguin Island is a satirical novel by Anatole France first published in 1908. The book details the history of the penguins and is written as a critique of human nature, and is also a satire on France's political history, including the Dreyfus affair. Morals, customs and laws are satirised within the context of the fictional land of Penguinia, where the animals were baptised erroneously by the myopic Abbot Maël. The book is ultimately concerned with the perfectibility of mankind. As soon as the Penguins are transformed into humans, they begin robbing and murdering each other. By the end of the book, a thriving civilization is destroyed by terrorist bombs.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

[Read by Frederick Davidson] First published in 1908, Penguin Island is widely regarded as Anatole France's masterpiece. Penguin Island is Anatole France's most searching and satirical novel. A humorous critique of customs and laws, rituals and rites, its subject is human nature, but its characters are penguins in the mythical land of Penguinia. The story of the strutting penguins and their virtues and vices is not merely a burlesque allegory of French history, but a satire of the history of mankind. With gentle yet biting irony, France challenges the Spencerian belief in the ultimate perfectibility of man, though his irony reveals his sympathy for man's weaknesses and his need for social institutions.