Île mystérieuse, L'. Serialized in Le Magasin d'éducation et de récréation (1874-5), this most Vernian of Verne's novels links Les Enfants du capitaine Grant (1867) to Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (1869); it combines a balloon, struggle against oppression, contrasting Robinsons, science (especially electricity), and taming the wilderness, with the revelation of Nemo's identity and his entombment under the volcanic island which then erupts. During the American Civil War a hurricane drives engineer Cyrus Smith, Nab his servant, Top the dog, reporter Gédéon Spillett, Pencroff the sailor, and young orphan Harbert Brown, captive Northerners escaping by balloon from besieged Richmond, to an island. Destitute, with only their clothes and what their pockets contain, they survive and even establish themselves comfortably, thanks to their talents and Smith's scientific culture, producing bricks, steel, and explosives before finding a chest of tools. They build a boat, rescue and re-educate Ayrton, the solitary castaway of Grant; they construct an electric telegraph, which mysteriously summons them: dying Nemo, the hidden benefactor who had been watching over them, is revealed as Prince Dakkar, the Indian independence fighter. After Lincoln Island's destruction, Nemo's treasure enables the castaways, rescued by Captain Grant's expedition, to re-create their colony on the mainland.
[Stephen Noreiko]
