THE WESLEYAN EARLY CLASSICS OF SCIENCE FICTION SERIES
GENERAL EDITOR:ARTHUR B. EVANS
THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
JULES VERNE
TRANSLATED BY SIDNEY KRAVITZEDITED BY ARTHUR B. EVANSINTRODUCTION AND CRITICALMATERIAL BY WILLIAM BUTCHER
Wesleyan University Press Middletown, Connecticut
Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown CT 06459
Translation copyright © 2001 by Sidney Kravitz.
Introduction and critical materials © 2001 William Butcher.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America &tc
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Verne, Jules, 1828–1905.
[Ile mystérieuse. English]
The mysterious island / Jules Verne ; translated by Sidney Kravitz ; edited by Arthur B. Evans ; with an introduction and critical materials by William Butcher.
p. cm. — (Early classics of science fiction)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8195-6475-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
I. Kravitz, Sidney. II. Evans, Arthur B. III. Butcher, William, 1951–IV. Title. V. Series.
PQ2469.I43 E5 2001
843′.8—dc21 2001026939
CONTENTS
Note on Previous Translations xxxiii
A. The Manuscripts of “Uncle Robinson” xxxv
B. The Manuscripts of The Mysterious Island xxxviii
C. Publication of The Mysterious Island xliii
Prefaces to The Mysterious Island, Two Years Vacation, and Second Homeland xlvii
A. A Few Words to the Readers of The Mysterious Island xlvii
B. Preface to Two Years Vacation xlviii
C. Preface—Why I Wrote Second Homeland xlviii
A Chronology of Jules Verne 653
A. Principal Works of Verne Cited 659
B. Studies of The Mysterious Island 659
D. The Principal Sources of The Mysterious Island 665
Appendix A: The Origins of The Mysterious Island 667
Appendix B: Verne’s Other Writing on the Desert-Island Theme 673
INTRODUCTION
At a time when Jules Verne is making a comeback in the United States as a mainstream literary figure, one of his most brilliant and famous novels remains unavailable in English. Although half a dozen works carrying the title “The Mysterious Island” are in print, all follow W. H. G. Kingston’s 1875 translation, which omits sections of the novel and ideologically skews other passages.1
The real Mysterious Island is nearly 200,000 words long. For Sidney Kravitz, this first-ever complete translation has been a long labor of love, resulting in a highly accurate text which captures every nuance and will be the reference text in English.
L’Ile mystérieuse (MI—1874–75) needs little presentation. In 1865 during the American Civil War, a violent storm sweeps a balloon carrying a group of Unionists to an island in the Pacific. After satisfying basic necessities, Cyrus Smith the engineer, Spilett the reporter, Pencroff the sailor, Harbert the adolescent, and Neb the Black find a single match and grain of wheat, and proceed to rebuild most of modern civilization. They construct a boat and rescue Ayrton from the neighboring island of Tabor, abandoned there as a punishment in Verne’s Captain Grant’s Children (1865) and now in an animal state. However, a series of puzzling incidents leads the settlers to believe they are not alone on the Mysterious Island, including a lead bullet and a washed-up chest. At the end of the novel, they discover that Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas (1869) has been helping them all along. Nemo reveals his true name to be Prince Dakkar, then dies, and is entombed in his Nautilus. Following a volcanic eruption, the Island disintegrates, leaving just a small rock, from which the settlers are rescued.
Astoundingly, no scholarly edition has ever been produced of this rich and influential work in either French or English. Yet studying the real-world references
