11 h 37 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What would you do with all the wealth in the world—and no one to share it with?
Adam Jeffson is a poor English doctor who sees a polar expedition as his chance to rise. Under Captain Strawbridge, the voyage north becomes a test of ambition and nerve. The captain wants the North Pole above all else, and tension grows as the explorers approach their goal.
Then a vast purple cloud, tied to volcanic upheavals, sweeps across the Earth. Jeffson faces a silent world and a question no expedition can prepare him for: how does a person live without other people? In The Purple Cloud, M. P. Shiel turns adventure into an intimate study of loneliness, power, and a mind with no one to answer to.
What you’ll discover
- Ambition on dangerous seas Follow a doctor whose need for money carries him toward the dangers of polar exploration.
- A world gone silent Enter an empty Earth where survival brings questions as frightening as the catastrophe itself.
- Wealth without companionship Consider what possession means when everything is within reach and nothing can be shared.
- One mind under pressure See through Jeffson's eyes, while questioning the account he gives of his strange experience.
- Rich and strange prose Let Shiel's unsettling style draw you into loneliness, unchecked power, and the need for others.
Who will love it
For readers who love early science fiction, end of the world stories, and dark tales that put one mind under pressure. Its eerie empty cities and themes of loneliness, pride and fate offer a haunting vision of a silent world.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A poor doctor joins the race north
- Ambition drives the explorers into danger
- A strange cloud rises and the world falls silent
- Alone, Jeffson tries to make sense of loneliness
- What the story is really about
- How Shiel tells it, and what to watch for
Who’s who
- Adam JeffsonA poor English doctor and the narrator, who joins a polar expedition for money and faces a world far stranger than he expected.
- Captain StrawbridgeThe driven leader of the expedition, who wants to reach the North Pole before anyone else and pushes his crew hard.
- LedaA young woman who appears late in the story and matters deeply to Jeffson's fate.
- The Purple CloudA vast colored vapor tied to volcanic upheavals, which sweeps across the Earth and changes the fate of everyone in its path.
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- Audiobook
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- Large print hardcover
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Read and hear Die purpurne Wolke in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Die purpurne Wolke
by M. P. Shiel · 1901
Adam Jeffson returns from a polar expedition to a silent world, where freedom and loneliness test his mind.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A poor doctor joins the race north
The story begins with Adam Jeffson, a young English doctor who has little money and many duties. He is hungry for a chance to rise, and he needs work that pays well. An offer comes from an expedition that is setting out to reach the North Pole. The leader is Captain Strawbridge, and the prize is glory for whoever gets there first.
Jeffson is not a born adventurer. He is quiet, practical and a little gloomy by nature. He tells his own story, and from the first pages we hear a man who feels that fate has its eye on him. He takes the post for the pay, not for the thrill, and he sets out with mixed feelings.
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What is The Purple Cloud about?
It tells of Adam Jeffson, a doctor on a polar expedition, who returns to find the world emptied by a deadly purple vapor. It follows how he copes, and how loneliness and power change him.
Who wrote The Purple Cloud and when?
M. P. Shiel wrote it, and it was first published in 1901. Shiel was a Caribbean-born writer who lived in England and wrote many romances and science fiction tales.
What does the purple cloud mean in the book?
It is a real deadly vapor in the story, but it also stands for forces beyond human control and for a judgment on human pride. Its strange beauty adds to the dread.
The author
M. P. Shiel
1865–1947 · British speculative fiction writer
M. P. Shiel was the pen name of Matthew Phipps Shiel, born in Montserrat in 1865. He moved to England in 1885 and died in 1947. He wrote novels and short stories. His books include the story collection Prince Zaleski (1895) and the novel The Purple Cloud (1901).
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