The Mysterious Island

For the Tokyo DisneySea land, see Mysterious Island

Cover page of The Mysterious Island

Map of "Lincoln Island"

The Mysterious Island (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.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler 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, and his African-American manservant of whom, although Verne repeatedly states that he is not a slave but instead a loyal butler, we only get to know his first name Neb, short for Nebuchadnezzar; the sailor Bonadventure Pencroft and his protegé Herbert Brown (a young boy whom Pencroft raises after the death of his father, Pencroft's former captain); fifth in the group is 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, nitroglycerine, iron, a simple electric telegraph, 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 Jupe.

The mystery of the island seems to come from periodic and inexplicable deus ex machinas: the unexplainable survival of Smith from his fall from the balloon, the mysterious rescue of his dog Top from a wild manatee, 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.

Cyrus Smith blessing the Captain Nemo on his death bed in The Mysterious Island

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.

The secret of the island is revealed when it turns out to be Captain Nemo's hideout, and home harbour of the Nautilus. Captain Nemo had been the savior of the heroes, provided them with the box of equipment, sent the message about Ayrton, torpedoed 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.^[2]

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.

Notes

1. ^ In the French original, some characters were named a little differently: Gédéon Spillet, Nabuchodonosor (Nab) and Harbert Brown.
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.

Film and TV adaptations

File:Mysteriousisland1929.jpg

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

• 1929: a USA All-Color Silent feature with Sound Effects and Music, directed by Lucien Hubbard.
• 1941: a USSR production, directed by Eduard Pentslin.
• 1951: directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
• 1961: directed by Cy Endfield, also known as Jules Verne's Mysterious Island
• 1973: La Isla misteriosa y el capitán Nemo, directed by Juan Antonio Bardem and Henri Colpi
• 1982: a Hong Kong production by Cheh Chang
• 1995: a short-lived Canadian television series
• 2005: a TV movie featuring Patrick Stewart as Captain Nemo

Other references

• The Japanese anime Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, by Gainax, is partly inspired by the book.

• The computer game Myst was also inspired by Verne's book.

• Mysterious Island is also the name of a land at Tokyo DisneySea and features two rides based on Jules Verne's books.

• The 105-year-old orangutan Joop, part of an experimental project by the fictitious Hanso Foundation from the ABC TV series Lost, is apparently a reference to the orangutan Jupe from the book.

External links

• The Mysterious Island from JV.Gilead.org.il
• Literary analysis of the novels of Jules Verne (French text)
• The Mysterious Island at Project Gutenberg
• L'Île Mystérieuse at Project Gutenberg (original French text)
• A rejtelmes sziget from DJP.TVN.HU Ajánló

• Jules Verne: Father of Science Fiction? - John Derbyshire, The New Atlantis