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Cover of The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

The Mysterious Island

Jules Verne

Part of the Voyages Extraordinaires series

  • 493 pages · about 8 hours
  • First published 1874
  • 83 editions
  • Free to read
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1 About this book

This sequel to "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" doesn't advertise itself as such. Most of the book concerns the efforts of a group of hot-air balloon castaways in the south Pacific ocean attempting to use modern knowledge in order to survive in near-desert-island conditions.

"Robinson Crusoe" (Defoe, 1719) started a trend of survival tales that lasts in some respects to this day and "Island" (1874) is Verne's contribution to that body of work. In my estimate, no film so far has done this book justice.

Good for readers who want: adventure, science fiction, a survival story, and a long read.

  • Adventure
  • Science fiction
  • Survival
  • Thrillers
  • Romance literature
  • Popular Print Disabled Books
  • Islands
  • Shipwrecks

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3 About Jules Verne

1828–1905

Jules Gabriel Verne ( VURN; French:; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872).

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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