6 h 23 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 6 h 23 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a rejected inventor puts a devastating weapon within reach of pirates?
Thomas Roch believes his fulgurator will change warfare. Its explosive power promises more destruction than any weapon governments possess. But rejection leaves the gifted French inventor bitter. In Jules Verne’s Facing the Flag, wounded pride threatens to turn scientific genius into a danger far beyond Roch himself.
Roch’s attendant, known as Gaydon, hides a purpose of his own. He is Simon Hart, a French engineer determined to protect the invention’s secret. When a wealthy visitor takes an interest in Roch, the danger draws Hart toward Back Cup, a concealed island base where pirates seek the weapon and observation becomes his chief resource.
What you’ll discover
- Genius with a dangerous edge Follow Roch as bitterness leaves his extraordinary invention open to criminal use.
- An attendant with a secret Watch Simon Hart balance his hidden purpose with the need to protect Roch’s knowledge.
- A concealed island prison Enter Back Cup, where a pirate base leaves Hart searching for ways to warn outsiders.
- Science in ruthless hands Explore how the fulgurator makes discovery a source of both promise and danger.
- Choices under mounting pressure Face the moral stakes when an inventor’s pride meets pirates eager for destructive power.
Who will love it
For readers who love sea adventure, secret hideouts and early submarines, and for anyone who enjoys a mystery solved one clue at a time. Fans of Verne's inventive gadgets and moral questions will find both here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A mad genius in Healthful House
- The guardian who is not what he seems
- The Count visits and a plan takes shape
- Searched by the navy and still unseen
- Hart's notes from the dark
- Inside the hollow mountain
- The Count is the pirate Ker Karraje
- A prisoner's schemes and a message in a keg
- The rescue that fails
- What the story is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- Thomas RochA brilliant French chemist, damaged in mind and bitter at every nation that refused his price, who guards the secret of his fulgurator.
- Simon HartA French engineer who poses as the attendant Gaydon, watches over Roch for his country's sake, and keeps a secret journal.
- Count d'ArtigasA rich, silent foreigner and owner of the schooner Ebba, who wants Roch's weapon and hides his true name.
- Engineer SerkoThe pirates' mocking, clever engineer who designed their submarine and works to win Roch's secrets and Hart's trust.
- Captain SpadeCommander of the Ebba, a cool and capable seaman who plans the kidnapping and carries it out.
- Lieutenant DavonA calm young British naval officer who enters the pirates' lair in a small submarine to save Roch and Hart.
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- Audiobook
- 6 h 23 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Di fronte alla bandiera 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.
Di fronte alla bandiera
by Jules Verne · 1896
A mad French inventor holds a weapon no nation will buy, and a Count with a mysterious schooner comes to visit him.
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In short
Facing the Flag is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, who died in 1905. It joins a sea story with a question that still matters: what should an inventor do when his work can destroy whole fleets?
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A mad genius in Healthful House
The story opens on June 15 at Healthful House, a private sanitarium near New Bern in North Carolina. A visiting card arrives from Count d'Artigas, who asks to tour the place with Captain Spade, commander of his schooner Ebba. The director is flattered, because the house is famous and the Count seems very rich.
The real attraction is one patient, the Frenchman Thomas Roch, forty-five years old. He has lived in Pavilion No. 17 for eighteen months. In daily life he is lost, with no memory and no judgment. Yet when his inventions come up, his mind turns sharp and sure.
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What is Facing the Flag about?
It tells of a mad French inventor, Thomas Roch, whose terrible weapon draws a rich Count and his schooner to a sanitarium in North Carolina. Roch and his guardian are carried off to a hidden pirate lair.
Who is Count d'Artigas in Facing the Flag?
He is a rich, silent owner of the schooner Ebba, whose origin no one knows. Hart learns that the name is false and that he is really the pirate Ker Karraje, who once terrorized the Pacific.
What is Back Cup?
Back Cup is a small islet at the edge of the Bermuda group, shaped like an upside-down cup. It looks like a smoking volcano, but inside it is hollow and holds the pirates' hidden base.
The author
Jules Verne
1828–1905 · French adventure novelist
Jules Verne was a French writer born in Nantes in 1828. He lived in Paris and later in Amiens, where he died in 1905. His novels include Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).
More by Jules Verne
All 23 booksMore like this
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