The Mysterious Island

By Jules Verne

According to Wikipedia, "The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Ferat. The novel is a crossover 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. 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."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seltzer Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781455366026

Jules Verne

Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. Verne is considered a major French and European author, as he has a wide influence on avant-garde and surrealist literary movements, and is also credited as one of the primary inspirations for the steampunk genre. However, his influence does not stop in the literary sphere. Verne’s work has also provided invaluable impact on scientific fields as well. Verne is best known for his series of bestselling adventure novels, which earned him such an immense popularity that he is one of the world’s most translated authors.

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Reviews for The Mysterious Island

[jonimfisher · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great escape reading. Loved the imagery and adventure!

[schmerguls · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a 2001 translation of the book published first in 1874. To the extent that the book is science fiction or fantasy the book disappoints. But much of the book tells of the stranded group on the island working out their existence, a la Robinson Crusoe, and that part of the book is fairly fun reading. Most of the time things work out very well, and most of the efforts of the group dropped on the Pacific island succeed and when they are really up against it a deus ex machina comes to their aid. This is the fifth Jules Verne book I have read and I think I have read as much of his work as I need to.

[srboone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Verne's second Nemo novel isn't as satisfying as the first, mostly due to it's pacing, but it's a grand adventure in it's own right: exciting, supense, with a large does of humor.

[elviomedeiros_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Most of the time you are not aware that this book was first published in 1874. That is how well it was written. In the end you kind of miss having the characters around. Nonetheless it is quite interesting how a small island, midway between South America and Australia, is so rich in plants, animals and minerals. The “colonizers” are able to make nitroglycerin (remembering we are in a deserted island in 1800´s), iron-wires and a telegraph. They find all sorts of plants, medicinal herbs and even tobacco. Not to mention the fauna, jaguars, kangaroos, orangutans (one is tamed!), and even a freshwater dugong. How did it get there? Mystery. Leaving that aside, this book made me wonder how dependent we are on technology and how ignorant we are about it. Most engineers today would not be able to construct what Cyrus Smith was able, only with bare hands and with the knowledge in his head (without books, internet or specialized tools).

[buffalogr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A sequel to "20,000 Leagues..." the book postulates a long balloon ride from Libby Prison in Richmond (1865) to a south seas island. One character, an engineer, dominates/leads the others and they all create an idyllic life on a the island. Originally published in 1874, republished many times over, the amount of research to create pottery, nitroglycerine, build a boat, domesticate animals, etc., was amazing. The writing style also reflects the times as does the attitude toward slavery and class. As I missed the opportunity in high school, I'll read some more Jules Verne.

[trhummer_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm reading this one to my seven year old daughter at bedtime; it's great for her, and for me as well, as when I was young I read this book again and again. It's still my favorite Verne.

[endersreads · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mr. Verne did a wonderous job with this adventure (given some slight date discrepancies between this book and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea")! Dealing with a party of 5 lead by first-class engineer Captain Harding (english translation), they make a hasty escape from their fate as American Civil War POW's to the siege in 1865 upon Richmond, Virginia, in a balloon, which soon finds itself lost and in a tempest. The 5 come to find themselves marooned on an island in the South Pacific. Awesomeness ensues. The highly inventive engineer soon sets his party to work upon making the desolate island somewhat technologically evolved. This inventiveness manifests itself in various machine makings and the such, and along with the strange happenings on the island and the soon to be found-out Captain Nemo, well, this makes this book quite unforgettable and a delightful read!

[mccin68 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

in 1865 5 men and a dog attempt a desparate escape during the american civil war by balloon. they become stranded on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. Their incredible resourcefulness, ingenuity and teamwork help them to colonize what they later rename as Lincoln Island. Verne can be tedious in his description of the engineering and metallurgic techinques but they are interesting all the same. Ending was quite far fetched and disappointing.

[missbecki_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book starts out with Verne's usual endearing absurdity (the men have crashlanded after stealing a hot air balloon to escape the American Civil War), but quickly becomes pretty boring. It took me a long time to plow through this, mostly because the plot moves so slowly. The mystery of the island is pretty disappointing, although I did like the final scene very much.

[choccy_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jules Verne is a god! If I can be a writer, I want to be like him. No one else. I've read five of his books and they all blew me away.The Mysterious Island is the ultimate Jules Verne's masterpiece. It tells about five castaways in an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, driven by a storm after they fled from the then raging Civil War in the US (1860s). For survival, they learn to be farmers, hunters, masons, sailors, potters, chemists, physicists, and various of professions you could imagine.Yes, this might sounds like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Doyle's The Lost World and other similar stories, but Verne's description is more....complete, adventurous, imaginative, rich with interesting details (hell, he can even make the process of making pottery and iron tools sounds rather fascinating). Plus, Verne's books are classic science fictions with amazing grand visions. Yeah yeah, there's that HG Wells guy, but he's nothing compared with Verne, believe me.The ending (which explains why the island is mysterious) is superb and kinda shocking to me. If you're an avid Jules Verne's reader, you'll know what I mean. Hint: character cross-over.

[kateingilo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I think I liked it even better, but its been a long time. Must read again

[rakerman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some very cool ideas, an incredible optimism about what intelligent people could accomplish.

[untraveller · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mildly entertaining, but there was much wrong with the book.... wrong science (but tis ok as it was the science of the time), but mostly the writing style. It seems that Verne has certain phrases he will use ad nauseum until the reader wants to throw the book at his grave. That really was the issue with me. Bad chronology as well that could have been easily fixed by eliminating certain dates. Enjoyable, but ponderous.

[michaeldwebb · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great fun, although it's really more of a mildy curious than a mysterious island. Still, really readable. A group of balloonists land on an island miles from anywhere, and through superiour engineer knowledge build the best island ever from scratch, like characters in the computer game Civilisation. Mildly unexplainable events happen.

[dlmorrese · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Originally published in 1875, this novel is noticeably dated, but it's still a good read.

[heptonj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book and still very readable after all these years. It's totally unbelievable but good fun and adventurous anyway. 5 men and a dog are stranded on an unknown island and proceed to colonise it in, quite frankly, ingenious ways. There is also a 'mystery helper' who aids them in their times of strife. For those 'PC' people, I suppose the fact that there was a master and a 'slave' (who, incidentally loved and admired his 'master') didn't sit too well but this book is not to be taken seriously. In those days there were 'masters' and 'slaves' and the good old Brits didn't show up in a very good light either. It's a fantasy and an adventure, full stop.

[garrison0550 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This a book I'd recommend to just about anyone!

[she_climber · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I listened to the audio version of this book on a road trip. And while interesting and entertaining. it was just so dang long. Not as good as Jules Vern's Journey to the Center of the Earth. I know long and wordy was the style back 150 years ago when this was originally written as there were few other choices for entertainment, and I have to say some of the vocabulary was quite interesting and educational. How these colonists managed all this time on this Mysterious Island while never once having an argument is the true mystery of the story to me.

[d7lury · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Two men and a boy arrived on a strange island. Mysterious things happened to them there. Will they see their homes again?I was surprised at the end. I thought they were strong people.

[jastbrown · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a fascinating story. As attractive now as when I read it as a teenager. This doesn't read as an old story, but rather as a modern story about an old subject.

[stpnwlf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Imagine "Lost" written by a much better author.

[bcjunior13 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The adventure novel written by Jules Verne depicting the survival techniques employed by ordinary men who beat back nature and held themselves in semblances of civilization reminiscent of a world they had lost. However climatic and enticing, this page-turner’s plot was woefully boring unlike many of Verne’s other books. The exploits of Cyrus Harding and the other men on Lincoln Island were sheer, unadulterated adventure yet achievable by any other men placed on the same island with naught but companions. That was perhaps the underlying intrigue of the book to me as I have spent many an hour contemplating the means I would need to accomplish to survive in the wilderness. Ultimately, I was dismayed by the lack of wit and mental acuity that Verne often imparts to her other characters. I found the verbal bantering and conversations dull and lacking in even the most simple of intellect. If I was to survive among such fellows whose chief concerns where often superfluous goods like tobacco, I would almost undoubtedly go insane just for sheer want of solitude. Perhaps that is where Harding succeeded and I would not.Perhaps the most disappointing part of the book was the end. Not wishing to discourage those who are yet reading from finishing rather warning them of impending disappoint. I thought there was some higher purpose to the almost magical happenings of the Mysterious Island, yet the climax’s lack of substance enraged me to the point that I was ready to fly in balloon to my own island intent in providing a better explanation of the mysteries of the island than Verne’s advertising campaign that filled the last pages of a disappointing work of literature.

[bzedan_2 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Oh my God. Some dudes are castaway on this island and I cannot put real words together to explain why I wanted to kill this book. So here are some select Twitters from when I was reading it:* I find it a little horrifying that the castaways in Verne's 'Mysterious Island' never use bone for anything. Too savage? [though they end up using some whale bone, but that's pretty white so it's okay]* They didn't use bone to tip arrows! They waited until the dog found a porcupine! How are clothes mended?!* Nor have they tanned hide yet—and left several seals to rot on a beach, taking the fat (for 'splosions & candles, no soap) ['splosions being nitro-glycerine, the better for shaping the world to human desires]* My God, they're doing everything backwards. The Mysterious Island castaways finally tan some leather, but not the rabbits. No. Koalas.* Yeah, I don't see how reading the "prequels" of Mysterious Island would help any. Pretty vaguely interwoven, there.* Mysterious Island, has not made me want to expand my Verne reading. I mean, thanks for summarising '20,000 Leagues' and all so now I don't have to read it—but still. This book is on my shit list. My book shit list also names 'Little House on the Prairie', which I couldn't even finish at the age of nine. Good company for it, I think.* The Terror and Unpredictability of Nature overwhelms Industry, okay. Whatever, Verne.

[unclebob53703 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This edition is unabridged, and has a lot more in it than I was previously aware.

[jessica_reads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first tread into Jules Verne. I was rewarded with a good read. The only complaint was that there was a lot of detail put into all the different mechanisms they had to make. However, it was still interesting to learn such things from the way to build many things from raw resources to how to create makeshift items to help with survival.

The story begins with 5 prisoners; an engineer, a sailor, a reporter, a servant, and a young man along with a very bright dog; traveling in a hot air balloon to escape imprisonment during the Civil War. They are thrown onto an island that isn't listed on any maps and well out of the way for any ships in the Pacific to go by. They even go on a short trip to a close but un-useful island to help a castaway. For four long years these escapees have to start from nothing to make themselves a civilized dwelling. They create everything from a house in granite rock and a garden and an animal farm to any mechanism they might need to create something to survive with. They spend their days working and building and creating all the necessities as well as some wants. They build two ships and at the last second when they fear death, they are saved. There are references to 20,000 leagues under the seas and captain Nemo as well as historical things.

The story is long but with all the details you learn not only to feel like you know the islanders but also enough to see their surroundings and feel their anxieties. There is adventure, camaraderie, pirates, survival, and many other things all wrapped up in this amazing classic.

[trgllylibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first half is REALLY slow, but then it gets more and more exciting. It's one of Verne's lesser-known works, worth investigating.

[jesssika-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first tread into Jules Verne. I was rewarded with a good read. The only complaint was that there was a lot of detail put into all the different mechanisms they had to make. However, it was still interesting to learn such things from the way to build many things from raw resources to how to create makeshift items to help with survival.

The story begins with 5 prisoners; an engineer, a sailor, a reporter, a servant, and a young man along with a very bright dog; traveling in a hot air balloon to escape imprisonment during the Civil War. They are thrown onto an island that isn't listed on any maps and well out of the way for any ships in the Pacific to go by. They even go on a short trip to a close but un-useful island to help a castaway. For four long years these escapees have to start from nothing to make themselves a civilized dwelling. They create everything from a house in granite rock and a garden and an animal farm to any mechanism they might need to create something to survive with. They spend their days working and building and creating all the necessities as well as some wants. They build two ships and at the last second when they fear death, they are saved. There are references to 20,000 leagues under the seas and captain Nemo as well as historical things.

The story is long but with all the details you learn not only to feel like you know the islanders but also enough to see their surroundings and feel their anxieties. There is adventure, camaraderie, pirates, survival, and many other things all wrapped up in this amazing classic.

[la2bkk · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was quite disappointed in this work.First of all, the book is too long. Verne may be many things, but "concise" is surely not one of them, at least as far as this work goes. Next, while the basic story line is excellent (castaways on an unknown island), Verne's characters are incredibly formulaic and shallow. So to with their various adventures on the island and their inevitable escapes from peril. While some aspects of the book show Verne's effort at displaying his wide ranging scientific knowledge of the day, many aspects of the ending are simply ridiculous. An excellent book for children or young adults. However, if you are looking for depth of character or any degree of sophistication, better go elsewhere.

[macdad-236140 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a very entertaining adventure novel, even if Verne's castaways were implausibly gifted with just the right skills and knowledge necessary to survive.

[ikeman100 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I obviously have not read enough Jules Verne. I was pleasantly surprised with this book. Now I have to start reading more of Verne's works. I like him better then H. G. Wells. Wells' stories were often more dreadful, hopeless and too "Victorian England". Verne writes with a timeless flavor of optimism and possibility.