21 h 41 minAudiobook15 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 does survival demand when science, engineering, and mystery meet on an island?
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne brings survival, science, and engineering into an adventure shaped by discovery. The central question is concrete and compelling: how can knowledge help sustain life? Here, the desire to understand belongs alongside the need to survive.
This is an invitation to follow both danger and ideas. Verne’s story joins adventure with science fiction, making room for the pleasure of discovery as well as the tension of survival. The island’s mystery gives that combination an added pull.
What you’ll discover
- Survival at the center Explore a story where staying alive gives science and engineering an urgent purpose.
- Science meets adventure Follow the meeting of scientific ideas and the demands of a survival story.
- Engineering with a purpose Consider engineering through the concrete stakes of survival, rather than as an abstract subject.
- The pull of mystery Let the promise of an island mystery draw you toward discovery.
- Discovery drives curiosity Find an adventure that makes the wish to understand part of its appeal.
Who will love it
Readers who love survival tales, clever inventions, and mysteries that build with a steady hand. It suits anyone curious about science and engineering, and anyone who enjoys watching a small, loyal team turn bare land into a home.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Storm Balloon Carries Five Escapers
- Fire Becomes Their First Great Problem
- Climbing the Mountain Gives Them a Map
- Knowledge Turns Clay into Civilization
- Patience, Seasons, and One Grain of Corn
- Strange Gifts and a Wild Stranger
- Pirates Arrive and the Sea Strikes Back
- Ayrton Vanishes and Herbert Fights for Life
- What the Island Is Really About
Who’s who
- Cyrus HardingA Massachusetts engineer and Union officer who leads the colony with science, calm judgment, and a firm belief that every problem has a solution.
- Gideon SpilettA New York Herald reporter, brave and quick-witted, who records the island's story and proves surprisingly handy with tools and a rifle.
- PencroftA tough, warm-hearted sailor who hatched the escape plan, loves the island, and longs most of all for a boat and a pipe of tobacco.
- Herbert BrownAn orphan boy of fifteen, eager for natural history, whose knowledge of plants and animals helps the settlers find food and remedies.
- NebHarding's devoted servant, a freed man of great strength and cheer, who serves as cook and refuses to believe his master is lost.
- TopHarding's loyal dog, whose sharp nose and strange behavior lead the settlers toward both rescue and mystery.
- AyrtonA solitary man found alone on a distant islet, haunted by guilt, who longs to prove he can be trusted and live honestly again.
Formats and delivery
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- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 21 h 41 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Mysterious Island
by Jules Verne · 1874
Five prisoners flee a besieged city in a storm balloon and crash on an unmapped Pacific island with nothing.
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In short
The Mysterious Island is an adventure novel by Jules Verne, the French writer who died in 1905. It follows five men and a dog who flee a besieged Confederate city in a storm balloon in March 1865 and fall onto an unmapped island in the Pacific.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Storm Balloon Carries Five Escapers
The story opens in March 1865, in the middle of a hurricane that rages for days across the world. A balloon spins over the Pacific with five passengers, and it is losing gas through a tear in its silk. The men throw out sandbags, guns, food, and even their pocketknives to stay in the air. At last they cut away the basket and cling to the netting, staring down at the waves.
Verne then explains who these people are. They are Union prisoners held in Richmond, a city under siege in the Civil War. Captain Cyrus Harding is a Massachusetts engineer of about forty-five, calm, strong, and trained in many skills. Gideon Spilett is a reporter for the New York Herald who once telegraphed chapters of the Bible simply to keep the wire busy and beat his rivals.
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What is The Mysterious Island about?
Five Union prisoners escape the siege of Richmond in a balloon and are blown across the Pacific to an uncharted island. Led by engineer Cyrus Harding, they build a colony from nothing while unexplained events keep helping them.
Is The Mysterious Island connected to other Jules Verne books?
Yes. The novel links to two other Verne stories. Its castaway Ayrton comes from Captain Grant's Children, and the island's secret ties to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Each book also stands on its own.
Is The Mysterious Island a true story?
No. Verne wrote it as fiction, published in the 1870s. Lincoln Island is imagined, though the American Civil War setting, the science, and the many practical methods are drawn from real knowledge of his time.
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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