17 h 34 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 17 h 34 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A bottle holds a shipwrecked captain’s plea for help—but only one line of latitude points the way.
Aboard the Scottish yacht Duncan, a fishing catch brings up a sealed bottle containing three damaged notes. Lord Edward Glenarvan sets out to find the missing Captain Grant. For the captain’s children, Mary and Robert, the voyage carries a deeply personal hope: that their father is still alive.
In Jules Verne’s In Search of the Castaways, the rescuers follow their slender clue across South America, Australia, New Zealand and open seas. Jacques Paganel, a learned but absent-minded geographer, helps untangle the words. Mountains, floods and wild animals test the party, while each reading of the message shapes where they search next.
What you’ll discover
- A puzzle across continents Follow damaged words and a line on the map through a rescue full of uncertainty.
- Children with everything at stake Share Mary and Robert Grant’s hope as they join the search for their missing father.
- Knowledge with a comic touch Meet Jacques Paganel, whose learning and absent-minded ways bring geography and humour into the journey.
- Wild country underfoot Cross the Andes and the pampas, where floods and wild animals make travel dangerous.
- Loyalty put to the test Watch courage, skill and steady friendship sustain the travellers when their search grows difficult.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy voyages, maps and puzzles will love this adventure with real places and curious animals. It also suits those who like a cheerful cast facing storms, floods and strange lands with humor.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A shark delivers a message in pieces
- A wife's bold plan sends the Duncan south
- Across the Andes, the mountain itself moves
- A silent guide leads them across the Pampas
- A flood teaches them they have searched wrongly
- In Australia, a helpful stranger leads the wagon on
- In New Zealand, the search ends in captivity
- Providence and perseverance drive every step
- Reading the message is the real adventure
- Verne tells it as a voyage of voices
Who’s who
- Lord Edward GlenarvanA generous Scottish peer who owns the yacht Duncan and sets out to save a shipwrecked captain he has never met.
- Lady HelenaGlenarvan's young wife, who proposes the rescue voyage and keeps her courage through every danger.
- Mary GrantCaptain Grant's elder daughter, who has raised her brother alone and will do anything to find their father.
- Robert GrantCaptain Grant's twelve-year-old son, brave and quick, who longs to be a sailor and believes his father is alive.
- Jacques PaganelA French geographer who boards the wrong ship by mistake and becomes the expedition's learned, absent-minded guide.
- Major McNabbsGlenarvan's calm cousin, a Scottish soldier who rarely speaks, never panics, and notices more than he says.
- John ManglesThe young captain of the Duncan, loyal to Glenarvan, skilled at sea, and quietly devoted to Mary Grant.
- ThalcaveA Patagonian guide of few words and great skill with horse and gun, who leads the travelers across the Pampas.
Formats and delivery
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- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
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- Hardcover
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I figli del capitano Grant
by Jules Verne · 1867
A shark swallows a bottle, and three scraps of paper send a Scottish lord around the world.
Medium level5–10 hours to readItaliano
Learn a language with medium classicsSpagnoloFranceseTedescoItalianoGiapponesePortogheseIngleseHow we measure levels
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In short
On a July day in 1864, sailors on a Scottish steam yacht cut open a hammerhead shark. Inside is a crusted bottle, and inside the bottle are three soaked scraps of paper, in English, French and German.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A shark delivers a message in pieces
The story opens on July 26, 1864, aboard the Duncan, a new steam yacht owned by Lord Glenarvan. The crew hooks a hammerhead shark and cuts it open. In its stomach lies a bottle crusted with sea growth. Glenarvan breaks it and finds three damaged documents, each seeming to copy the same note.
Salt water has erased most of the words, so the group trades fragments across the three languages like people solving a crossword. Piece by piece, a message appears. The ship Britannia of Glasgow sank in June 1862, and her captain and two sailors ask for help at a latitude of thirty-seven degrees eleven minutes. A word ending in gonie makes Lady Helena cry out Patagonia.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1867
- Language
- Italiano
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Verne, Jules. In Search of the Castaways. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-search-of-the-castaways.
Verne, J. (2026). In search of the castaways. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-search-of-the-castaways (Original work published 1867)
Verne, Jules. In Search of the Castaways. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-search-of-the-castaways.
@book{verne2026search,
author = {Verne, Jules},
title = {In Search of the Castaways},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-search-of-the-castaways},
note = {First published 1867}
}
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What is In Search of the Castaways about?
It follows a Scottish lord and his friends who find a message in a bottle and sail around the world along the thirty-seventh parallel. They hope to rescue Captain Grant, who was lost when his ship, the Britannia, went down.
Who is Paganel in In Search of the Castaways?
Jacques Paganel is a French geographer who boards the Duncan by mistake, thinking it is a ship to India. He joins the search and becomes the group's guide, always learned, talkative and delightfully absent-minded.
Why is the thirty-seventh parallel important in the book?
The damaged message gives a latitude of thirty-seven degrees eleven minutes but no longitude. The travelers decide to follow that line of latitude all the way around the world, which takes them through South America, Australia and New Zealand.
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
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