A group of boys find themselves adrift at sea, and after a terrible storm they are cast upon a deserted island, where they must learn to get along together to survive.

Review"...this excellent little book...shows [Verne] at his most whimsically sciene-fictional...Highly recommended." -- Science Fiction Studies, 2004Product DescriptionHere at last is the first complete edition and the first English translation of a surprising work by a tremendously popular French writer whose novels continue to delight readers and audiences nearly a century after his death.Jules Verne (1828-1905), the most translated novelist in the world and best known for books such as TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS was also a prolific playwright. JOURNEY THROUGH THE IMPOSSIBLE, a play of fantasy and science fiction, ran 97 performances in Paris in 1882 and 1883. In three acts, the characters go first in the center of the earth, then under the sea, and finally to the planet "Altor." Characters from TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, DOCTOR OX, and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH appear again in JOURNEY THROUGH THE IMPOSSIBLE, including Captain Nemo, President Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Doctor Ox, and Professor Lidenbrock.Verne wrote this play in the middle of his life, between his optimistic (science helps humanity and is good) and pessimistic (science is dangerous and bad) works; the play is a vehicle for Verne to ask himself and his readers whether science, technology, and the pursuit of knowledge are good or bad. He used the play to pose questions about life and wisdom that are still important to us today.The script of the play was lost to Vernian scholars for almost acentury, until the text was discovered in 1978 in the archives of theCensorship Office of the Third French Republic. This special editionof JOURNEY THROUGH THE IMPOSSIBLE includes several important featuresthat will enhance the reader's appreciation for the play. EdwardBaxter's compelling English translation is augmented by a revealingIntroduction written by Jean-Michel Margot, president of the NorthAmerican Jules Verne Society, which places the play in historicalcontext and explains its importance to Verne's corpus. Detailedreferences and explanatory notes by Margot expand upon important termsand concepts in the play and provide additional insights into theauthor. Many wonderful illustrations from the original set designsand a reproduction of a page from a lost scene of the play combinewith spectacular original illustrations by artist Roger Leyonmarkcreated specifically for this edition of the work. Leyonmark'sartistry will transport readers to the world of Jules Verne on stage.

fiction , prose

Propeller Island (French: L'Île à hélice) (also published as The Floating Island, or The Pearl of the Pacific) is a science fiction novel by French author Jules Verne (1828–1905). It was first published in 1895 as part of the Voyages Extraordinaires. It relates the adventures of a French string quartet in Milliard City, a city on a massive ship in the Pacific Ocean, inhabited entirely by millionaires.It should not be confused with the different book by Jules Verne, The Floating City.

IN a long preface to the original French edition of this story—too long to be given in full here— M. Jules Verne tells how the stories of "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Swiss Family Robinson" were the books of his childhood, and of the imperishable impression they made upon his mind.They influenced his bent in literature to a very marked extent—not only the two books named, but imitations such as "The Twelve-Year-old Robinson," "The Robinson of the Desert," and "The Adventures of Robert Robert," half-forgotten, perhaps now completely forgotten, French stories for young readers, and an island story of Fenimore Cooper's, "The Crater," which it is safe to say has not been read by one person for every hundred who have rejoiced in the great Leatherstocking series.To this influence we owe "The Mysterious Island" and "Godfrey Morgan." There were also "The Robinsons at School" and "Two Years' Holidays," which have not yet appeared in English form. The author does not mention "Godfrey Morgan," by the way, but that book must surely be classed with these.Jules Verne found the part of "Robinson Crusoe" which deals with the island "a masterpiece which is merely an episode in a long and tedious tale." But he drew delight from every page of "The Swiss Family Robinson." He came to believe, he says, that New Switzerland was a real island and he felt that the story did not really end with the arrival of the Unicorn. The surface of the island had not been fully explored.Fritz, Frank, and Jenny Montrose had gone to Europe. They must have had adventures, and those adventures ought to be told. So he felt that he positively must write about them.One can guess that the romancer of Amiens got out of his work upon this book—"Their Island Home" —and its sequel—"The Castaways of the Flag"—a pleasure at least equal to that he derived from the writing of any of the numerous volumes which have enchanted generations of boys. All his stories were very real to him; but one doubts whether any other was quite so real as these two, whether even Captain Nemo or Dick Sands were quite as dear to him as the Wolstons and the Zermatts.The author of the original work was Rudolph Wyss, who was born at Berne in 1781, and died in 1860. The book which made him a popular author was not his only one, but the others seem to have been more the product of his mind as a professor than of his imaginative faculties, and they do not matter here. "The Swiss Family Robinson" was published (in German) at Zurich in 1812, and a first French translation appeared in 1813. The English version could not have been very long after this, and the book has maintained its popularity in England as in France and Switzerland, doubtless as in a dozen other countries.