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
You will love this book if you enjoy end of the world fiction, lonely survivors, Arctic voyages, eerie empty cities, and narrators whose minds are as wild as the world around them.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A preacher warns against reaching the Pole
- Adam hears two voices and meets Clodagh
- A poisoning clears Adam's path north
- The icebound voyage turns men into beasts
- At the Pole Adam sees something he cannot name
- The ship of the dead and a silent Europe
- A king of ashes burns the cities he rules
- Building becomes a struggle against despair
- The earth becomes Adam's uneasy companion
Who’s who
- Adam JeffsonA young London doctor who joins an Arctic expedition for a fortune and hears two quarrelling Voices within him.
- ClodaghAdam's proud, cold fiancée, a countess who wants him to be first at the Pole and is skilled with drugs.
- MackayA fierce Scottish preacher who warns London that the Pole is forbidden ground and that disaster will follow.
- ClarkThe leader of the Boreal expedition, who dreams Adam will join him and chooses his companions for the final dash.
- David WilsonThe expedition's electrician and best shot, who comes to accuse Adam openly of murder.
- Peter PetersClodagh's nephew and the expedition's doctor, whose sudden illness opens a place for Adam.
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- Audiobook
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- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Read and hear Le Nuage pourpre 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.
Le Nuage pourpre
by M. P. Shiel · 1901
A doctor races to the North Pole for a fortune and returns to a world where every living voice has gone silent.
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In short
What would you do if you stood at the North Pole and the whole world died while you were there? In The Purple Cloud, M. P. Shiel tells the story of Adam Jeffson, a young London doctor who joins a race to the Pole for a fortune.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A preacher warns against reaching the Pole
Adam's account opens with a warning. In London, a Scottish preacher named Mackay thunders against the new Boreal expedition, saying the Pole is a forbidden place, like the tree in Eden. He tells his crowds that those who reach it should expect only dark skies and stormy weather from God.
The world is feverish for the prize. A dead American millionaire, Charles Stickney, has left 175 million dollars to the first man to set foot on the Pole. Twenty-seven expeditions have failed in ten years, and the newspapers treat the Boreal as a bet, a hope or a joke. Adam Jeffson, the narrator, hears Mackay speak and shrugs him off before he even gets home.
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What is The Purple Cloud about?
It tells of Adam Jeffson, a doctor who reaches the North Pole and returns to find a poison cloud has killed almost everyone. He wanders through silent cities and struggles with his own changing mind.
What is the purple cloud in the book?
Adam links it to cyanogen or a related poison from a huge volcanic eruption. It spreads around the earth, killing almost every living thing in its path.
How does the frame of The Purple Cloud work?
Dr. Browne records Mary Wilson's words during her trances. She appears to read a document from the future, and Adam's account reaches the reader through those notes.
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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