The Mysterious Island

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Title The Mysterious Island
Cover page of The Mysterious Island
Author Jules Verne
Original title L'Île mystérieuse
Illustrator Jules Férat
Country France
Language French
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Hetzel
Released 1874
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN NA
Map of "Lincoln Island"
Map of "Lincoln Island"
Cyrus Smith blessing Captain Nemo on his death bed in The Mysterious Island
Cyrus Smith blessing Captain Nemo on his death bed in The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island (original title: L'Île mystérieuse) is a French novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though thematically it is vastly different from those books.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The book tells the adventures of Americans on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. The story begins in the American Civil War, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America. As famine and death ravage the city, five northern prisoners of war decide to escape in a rather unusual way – by hijacking a balloon.

The five are Cyrus Smith, a railroad engineer in the Union army, his African-American manservant Neb (short for Nebuchadnezzar), who Verne repeatedly states is not a slave but instead a loyal butler, the sailor Pencroff and his protégé Harbert Brown (a young boy whom Pencroff raises after the death of his father, Pencroff's former captain), and the journalist Gideon Spilett. The company is completed by Cyrus' dog 'Top'[1].

After flying in stormy weather for several days, the group crash-lands on a cliff-bound, volcanic, unknown (and fictitious) island, located at 34°57′S 150°30′W about 2,500 km east of New Zealand. They name it "Lincoln Island" in honour of American President Abraham Lincoln. With the knowledge of the brilliant engineer Smith, the five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin, iron, a simple electric telegraph, a home in stone called the "Granite House", and even a sea-worthy ship. They also manage to find their geographical location.

Throughout their stay on the island, the group has to overcome bad weather, and eventually adopts and domesticates an orangutan, Jupiter, abbreviated to Joop.

The mystery of the island seems to come from periodic and inexplicable dei ex machina: the unexplainable survival of Smith from his fall from the balloon, the mysterious rescue of his dog Top from a wild dugong, a box full of equipment (guns and ammunition, tools, etc...), the finding of a message in the sea calling for help, and so on.

Finding a message in a bottle, the group decides to use a freshly-built small ship to explore the nearby Tabor Island, where a castaway is supposedly sheltered. They go and find Ayrton (from In Search of the Castaways), living like a wild beast, and bring him back to civilization and redemption. Coming back to Lincoln Island, they are confused by a tempest, but find their way to the island thanks to a fire beacon; which no one seems to have lit.

At a point, Ayrton's former crew of pirates arrives at the Lincoln Island to use it as their hideout. After some fighting with the heroes, the pirate ship is mysteriously destroyed by an explosion, and the pirates themselves are found dead, apparently in combat, but with no visible wounds.

However, six of the pirates managed to survive and even manage to considerably injure Harbert through a gunshot. Harbert then, after recovering, contracts a disease called malignant fever and is saved by a box of sulphate of quinine, which mysteriously appeared on the table in the Granite House.

The secret of the island is revealed when it turns out to be Captain Nemo's hideout, and home harbour of the Nautilus.

It turns out having escaped the Maelstrom at the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the Nautilus sailed the oceans of the world until all its crew except for Nemo had died. Presumably the other crewmen perished from natural causes. Now an old man with a beard, Nemo returned the Nautilus to the island where the submarine had supposedly originally been built. [2]

All along it was Captain Nemo who had been the savior of the heroes, provided them with the box of equipment, sent the message about Ayrton, planted the mine that destroyed the pirate ship, and killed the pirates with an electric gun. Nemo dies of old age and the Nautilus is scuttled to be Nemo's tomb.[3]

Eventually, the island explodes in a volcano eruption, and the castaways, warned by Nemo, find themselves at sea on the last remaining boulder of the island that is above sea level. They are rescued by the Duncan ship, come to pick up Ayrton, and itself informed by a message left on Tabor Island by Nemo.

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑  In the French original, some characters were named a little differently: Gédéon Spillet, Nabuchodonosor (Nab) and Harbert Brown. In some English editions, the engineer is named Cyrus Harding.
  2. ↑  It is interesting to know that while the book was written in 1874, its events take place from 1865 to 1867. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was written between 1869 and 1870 and records the voyages of the Nautilus between 1867 and 1869. This means that the Captain Nemo appearing in the 'mysterious island' dies BEFORE the Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea takes professor Aronnax on his underseas expeditions. Also, when the captain reveals himself to the castaways, Cyrus Smith recognizes him and the Nautilus from the descriptions in Aronnax' journals (the famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), which are still another four years from appearing! There is generally a note in the book admitting date discrepancies.
  3. While Verne envisioned a chemical process to generate electricity for Nemo's Nautilus from sea-water, Cyrus Smith - in reply to a question regarding the durability of the Earth's supplies of coal - forecasts that in the future mankind will split water into hydrogen and oxygen to derive energy from it. Thus, Jules Verne predicted the fuel cell in 1874.
  4. It is a curious coincidence that the geographical location of the Mysterious Island is almost exactly that of Ernest Legouve Reef, which appears to be a phantom island.
  5. At some times the engineer Cyrus Smith comments on the difficulties of making the precision tools needed, for instance, for making firearms. This is actually more a limitation on the engineer's vast ability, which is more turned to chemistry, than a true limitation of the resources the castaways had in the island. The creation of precision machines from scrap is described in detail in David J. Gingery's books.

[edit] Film and TV adaptations

Lobby Card for the 1929 version of The Mysterious Island which was filmed in Technicolor
Lobby Card for the 1929 version of The Mysterious Island which was filmed in Technicolor

[edit] Other references

  • The computer game Myst was also inspired by Verne's book.
  • The computer game Return to Mysterious Island (2004) is an adventure game sequel to the story. Its heroine, Mina, is shipwrecked alone on the uncharted island, and finds several of the bodies of the previous inhabitants, including Captain Nemo (whom she buries). She finally escapes by locating the Nautilus and disabling the island's defences.
  • The ABC TV series Lost may be influenced by Verne's book. For instance, the 105-year-old orangutan Joop, part of an experimental project conducted by the fictitious Hanso Foundation, is probably a reference to the orangutan Jup from the book.
  • The WizKids CSG Pirates of the Spanish Main features an expansion titled "Pirates of the Mysterious Islands." It includes Verne-inspired submarines, as well as mysterious islands with varied features. It includes appearances by The Nautilus, Professor Aronnax, Ned Land, Captain Nemo, and more Verne characters.

[edit] External links

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