Vern's Four Great Science Fiction Masterpieces - The Mysterious Island (Illustrated Edition)

Author: (French) Jules Verne
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-07-01
Features: They are like seeds in my mind, and with just a gentle breeze, a ray of sunshine, and a drop of spring rain, they can grow and bloom like flowers. Verne was an exceptionally talented popular fiction writer, possessing the ability to make his own visions tangible. His sense is all-encompassing, conveying a certain human passion from ordinary literature. Verne's works are filled with knowledge, but he himself was a cosmic mystic, holding a mysterious reverence for the world. In his novels, there are sometimes insufficiently profound reflections on issues, and the themes are often repetitive. Overall, Verne's efforts remain great. Though he wrote about trivial matters, his works still leave us deeply moved. In 1884, Pope Leo XIII said upon meeting Verne: "I am not unaware of the scientific value of your works, but what I cherish is their purity, moral worth, and spiritual strength."
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In The Mysterious Island, the protagonists include an engineer, a journalist, a sailor, a Black person, and a child, each representing different strata of human society. They encounter danger while in a balloon; these aerial victims are genuine survivors who have barely reached a deserted island, with all their means of subsistence coming solely from the island. As a result, they can only rely on their own wit and intelligence. They possess perseverance and a social consciousness that binds them closely together. This small group, struggling to secure the most basic necessities of life, thus regresses to the Stone Age. Fortunately, one of the survivors, the engineer Cyrus Smith, the accumulated knowledge of humanity. He first uses the lenses of two watch glasses to make a magnifying glass to start a fire. He methodically maps the terrain of the deserted island and names it Lincoln Island. He crafts bows and arrows for hunting. After discovering clay, several metal ores, and coal, he builds a furnace, then a blast furnace, and finally smelts steel, using it to create the first set of tools. After extensive repeated experiments, he successfully produces several chemical products, particularly nitroglycerin; he uses this powerful explosive to blast a granite hill, allowing him to divert the lake water from the other side. Upon entering the lake through the old overflow channel, the engineer discovers a spacious cave, which is connected to the sea and continuously filled with seawater. The resourceful survivors transform this cave into a rather comfortable and spacious dwelling; to reach the shore, they even set up a simple ladder. They plant crops on the island and build corrals to protect the tamed livestock. They also construct a telegraph to communicate between their settlement and the farmland.