Robinson Crusoe, is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela, encountering Native Americans, captives, and mutineers before being rescued.
The story was likely influenced by the real-life Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived four years on the Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (in 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile. However, the details of Crusoe's island were probably based on the Caribbean island of Tobago, since that island lies a short distance north of the Venezuelan coast near the mouth of the Orinoco river, and in sight of the island of Trinidad. It is also likely that Defoe was inspired by the Latin or English translations of Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, an earlier novel also set on a desert island. Another source for Defoe's novel may have been Robert Knox's account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon in 1659 in "An Historical Account of the Island Ceylon," Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons (Publishers to the University), 1911.
Plot summary
Crusoe (the family name transcribed from the German name "Kreutznaer" or "Kreutznär") sets sail from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in September 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who want him to stay home and assume a career in law. After a tumultuous journey that sees his ship wrecked by a vicious storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey too ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates, and Crusoe becomes the slave of a Moor. After two years of slavery, he manages to escape with a boat and a boy named Xury; later, Crusoe is befriended by the Captain of a Portuguese ship off the western coast of Africa. The ship is en route to Brazil. There, with the help of the captain, Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation.
Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on September 30, 1659. His companions all die. Having overcome his despair, he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He proceeds to build a fenced-in habitation near a cave which he excavates himself. He keeps a calendar by making marks in a wooden cross built by himself, hunts, grows corn and rice, dries grapes to make raisins for the winter months, learns to make pottery, raises goats, etc., using tools created from stone and wood which he harvests on the island, and adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and suddenly becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but society.
Years later, he discovers native cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes that he has no right to do so as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; and indeed, when a prisoner manages to escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.
After another party of natives arrives to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday manage to kill most of the natives and save two of the prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return with Friday's father to the mainland and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port.
Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have taken control of the ship and intend to maroon their former captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal, in which he helps the captain and the loyalist sailors retake the ship from the mutineers, whereupon they intend to leave the worst of the mutineers on the island. Before they leave for England, Crusoe shows the former mutineers how he lived on the island, and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island December 19, 1686, and arrives back in England June 11, 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead and there was nothing in his father's will for him. Crusoe then departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him a large amount of wealth. In conclusion, he takes his wealth over land to England to avoid traveling at sea. Friday comes with him and along the way they endure one last adventure together as they fight off hundreds of famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.
The story was likely influenced by the real-life Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived four years on the Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (in 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile. However, the details of Crusoe's island were probably based on the Caribbean island of Tobago, since that island lies a short distance north of the Venezuelan coast near the mouth of the Orinoco river, and in sight of the island of Trinidad. It is also likely that Defoe was inspired by the Latin or English translations of Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, an earlier novel also set on a desert island. Another source for Defoe's novel may have been Robert Knox's account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon in 1659 in "An Historical Account of the Island Ceylon," Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons (Publishers to the University), 1911.
Plot summary
Crusoe (the family name transcribed from the German name "Kreutznaer" or "Kreutznär") sets sail from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in September 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who want him to stay home and assume a career in law. After a tumultuous journey that sees his ship wrecked by a vicious storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey too ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates, and Crusoe becomes the slave of a Moor. After two years of slavery, he manages to escape with a boat and a boy named Xury; later, Crusoe is befriended by the Captain of a Portuguese ship off the western coast of Africa. The ship is en route to Brazil. There, with the help of the captain, Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation.
Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on September 30, 1659. His companions all die. Having overcome his despair, he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He proceeds to build a fenced-in habitation near a cave which he excavates himself. He keeps a calendar by making marks in a wooden cross built by himself, hunts, grows corn and rice, dries grapes to make raisins for the winter months, learns to make pottery, raises goats, etc., using tools created from stone and wood which he harvests on the island, and adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and suddenly becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but society.
Years later, he discovers native cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes that he has no right to do so as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; and indeed, when a prisoner manages to escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.
After another party of natives arrives to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday manage to kill most of the natives and save two of the prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return with Friday's father to the mainland and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port.
Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have taken control of the ship and intend to maroon their former captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal, in which he helps the captain and the loyalist sailors retake the ship from the mutineers, whereupon they intend to leave the worst of the mutineers on the island. Before they leave for England, Crusoe shows the former mutineers how he lived on the island, and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island December 19, 1686, and arrives back in England June 11, 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead and there was nothing in his father's will for him. Crusoe then departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him a large amount of wealth. In conclusion, he takes his wealth over land to England to avoid traveling at sea. Friday comes with him and along the way they endure one last adventure together as they fight off hundreds of famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.
The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas' most popular work. The writing of the work was completed in 1844. Like many of his novels, it is expanded from the plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet.
The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through to the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. It is primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, forgiveness and death, and is told in the style of an adventure story.
Background to the plot
Dumas has himself indicated that he had the idea for the revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo from a story which he had found in a book compiled by Jacques Peuchet, a French police archivist and published in 1838, after the death of the author. Dumas included this essay in one of the editions from 1846. Peuchet related the tale of a shoemaker named Pierre Picaud, who was living in Nîmes in 1807. Picaud had been engaged to marry a rich woman, but three jealous friends falsely accused him of being a spy for England. He was imprisoned for seven years. During his imprisonment a dying fellow prisoner bequeathed him a treasure hidden in Milan. Picaud was released in 1814. He took possession of the treasure and returned under another name to Paris. Picaud spent ten years plotting his successful revenge against his former friends. In another of the "True Stories" Peuchet relates the tale of a terrible affair of poisoning in a family. This story, also quoted in the Pleiade edition, has obviously served as model for the chapter of the murders inside the Villefort family. The introduction to the Pleiade edition mentions other sources from real life: the abbé Faria really existed and died in 1819 after a life with much resemblance to that of the Faria in the novel. As for Dantès, his fate is quite different from his model in Peuchet's manuscript, since the latter is murdered by the "Caderousse" of the plot. But Dantès has "alter egos" in two other works of Dumas: First in "Pauline" from 1838, then, more significantly, in "Georges" from 1843 where a young man with black ancestry is preparing a revenge against white people who had humiliated him.
Historical background
The success of Monte Cristo coincides with that of France's Second Empire and besides the description of the return of Napoleon I in 1815 Dumas hints at least once to the events: the governor at the Château d'If is promoted to a position at the castle of Ham. The attitude of Dumas towards "bonapartisme" was extremely complicated and involved. This conflict dates back to his father, who was a coloured man, borne of a slave and who became a famous general during the French Revolution. When new racist laws were applied in 1802 the general was dismissed from the army and he was profoundly bitter towards Napoleon when he died in 1806. An event in 1840 renewed the patriotic support for the Bonaparte family in the population: the ashes of Napoleon I were brought to France and became object of veneration in the church of Les Invalides.
In "Causeries" from 1860, Dumas prints a short paper on the genesis of Monte-Cristo. This essay, called "État civil du "Comte de Monte-Cristo"" is included in the Pléiade edition (Paris, 1981) as an "annexe". It appears that Dumas had close and intimate contacts with members of the Bonaparte family while living in Florence in 1841. In a small boat he sailed around the island of Monte-Cristo accompanied by one of the young princes – a cousin to he who was to be emperor of France ten years later. During this trip he promised the prince that he would write a novel with the island's name as title. At this moment the future emperor was imprisoned at the citadel of Ham – a name that is mentioned in the novel. Dumas did visit him there, but he does not mention it in "Etat civil..." Louis Napoleon was imprisoned for life, but he fled in disguise. This happened in 1846 while Dumas's novel was already a gigantic success. Just as Dantès, Louis Napoleon reappeared in Paris as a powerful and enigmatic man of the world. In 1848, however, Dumas did not vote for Louis Napoleon, but the novel may have contributed – against the will of the writer – to the victory of the future Napoleon III.
A chronology of The Count of Monte Cristo and Bonapartism
Dumas grandfather:
1793: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas is promoted to the rank of general in the army of the First French Republic.
1794: He disapproves of the revolutionary terror in Western France.
1795-97: He becomes famous. Fights under Napoleon.
1802: Black officers are dismissed from the army. The Empire reestablishes slavery.
1802: Birth of his son, Alexandre Dumas père.
1806: Th. A. Dumas dies, still bitter towards the injustice of the Empire.
Dumas father:
1832: The only son of Napoleon I dies.
1836: A. Dumas is already a famous writer.
1836: First putsch by Louis Napoleon, aged 28. Fails completely.
1840: June. A law is passed to bring the ashes of Napoleon I to France.
1840: August. Second putsch of Louis Napoleon. He is imprisoned for life and becomes known as the candidate for the imperial succession.
1841: Dumas lives in Florence and becomes acquainted with King Jérôme and his son, Napoléon.
1841-44: The novel is conceived and written.
1846: The novel is a European bestseller.
1846: Louis Napoleon escapes from his prison.
1848: French Second Republic. Louis Napoleon is elected its first president but Dumas does not vote for him.
1857: Dumas publishes État civil du Comte de Monte-Cristo
Plot summary
Edmond Dantès
Edmond Dantès, a young and successful merchant sailor recently granted his own command by his dying captain Leclère, returns to Marseille to marry his fiancée Mercédès. Leclère, a supporter of the exiled Napoléon I, charges Dantès on his deathbed to deliver two objects: a package to Maréchal Bertrand (who had been exiled with Napoleon Bonaparte to the isle of Elba), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. Subsequently, an anonymous letter accuses Dantès of being a Bonapartist traitor. The letter is later revealed to have been written by Mercédès' cousin Fernand Mondego and Danglars, Dantès' ship's supercargo. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, assumes the duty of investigating the matter. Villefort is normally considered a just man, but on discovering that the recipient of the letter from Elba is his Bonapartist father, he ultimately chooses to save his political career and condemns Dantès without trial to life imprisonment and protects his father by destroying the incriminating letter.
During his fourteen years imprisonment in the Château d'If, Edmond is visited in his cell by the Abbé Faria, a priest and fellow prisoner trying to tunnel his way to freedom. Faria had been imprisoned for proposing a united Italy. In the Chateau d'If, he was known as "The Mad Priest", claiming to be in possession of a massive treasure, and offering to reward the guards handsomely, should they release him. Faria provides Dantès with education in subjects including languages, history, economics, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry and the manners of political society. The priest, ill from a form of catalepsy and knowing that he will soon die, confides in Dantès the location of a treasure hoard on the Italian islet of Monte Cristo. After Faria's death the following year, Dantès escapes and is rescued by a smuggling ship. After several months of working with the smugglers, he gets the opportunity to go to Monte Cristo for a goods exchange. Dantès fakes an injury and convinces the smugglers to temporarily leave him on Monte Cristo. He then makes his way to the hiding place of the treasure. He returns to Marseilles, where he learns that his father has died in poverty. He buys himself a yacht and hides the rest of the treasure on board. With his new found wealth and education, Dantès buys the island of Monte Cristo and the title of Count from the Tuscan Government.
Returning to Marseille, Dantès puts into action his plans for revenge. Traveling in disguise as the Abbé Busoni, Edmond first meets Caderousse, whose intervention might have saved Dantès from imprisonment. Now living in poverty, Caderousse believes his current state is punishment by God for his jealousy and cowardice. Dantès learns from Caderousse how his other enemies have all become wealthy and prosperous since Dantès' betrayal. Edmond gives Caderousse a diamond that can be either a chance to redeem himself, or a trap that will lead to his ruin. Caderousse murders the jeweler to whom he sold the diamond and is sentenced to life in the prison galleys. Dantès (using another disguise, this time as the English Lord Wilmore) frees Caderousse and gives him another chance at redemption. Caderousse does not take it, and becomes a career criminal.
Learning that his old employer Morrel is on the verge of bankruptcy and disgrace after his ships have been lost at sea, Dantès (in the guise of a senior clerk of the banking firm of Thomson and French of Rome) buys all of Morrel's outstanding debts and gives Morrel an extension of three months to fulfill his obligations. At the end of the three months and with no way to repay his debts, Morrel is about to commit suicide when he learns that all of his debts have been mysteriously paid and that one of his ships has returned with a full cargo (the ship had been secretly rebuilt and laden by Dantès).
The Count of Monte Cristo
The story then moves forward nine years. Dantès debuts in public as the Count of Monte Cristo, a mysterious and fabulously rich aristocrat. He surfaces first in Rome, where he becomes acquainted with the Baron Franz d'Épinay, a young aristocrat, and Viscount Albert de Morcerf, Mercédès's and Fernand's son. He later rescues Albert from Italian bandits. Dantès subsequently moves to Paris, and with Albert de Morcerf's introduction, becomes the sensation of the city. Due to his knowledge and rhetorical power, even his enemies - who do not recognize him as Edmond Dantès - find him charming, and because of his status they all desire his friendship.
Monte Cristo meets Danglars, who has become a wealthy banker. Monte Cristo dazzles the crass Danglars with his seemingly endless wealth, eventually persuading him to extend him a 6,000,000 francs credit, and withdraws nine hundred thousand. Under the terms of the arrangement, Monte Cristo can demand access to the remainder at any time. The Count manipulates the bond market, through a false telegraph signal, and quickly destroys a large portion of Danglars' fortune, and the rest of it begins to rapidly disappear through mysterious bankruptcies, suspensions of payment, and more bad luck on the Stock Exchange.
Monte Cristo threatens Villefort with knowledge of his past affair with Madame Danglars, which produced a son. Believing the child to be stillborn, Villefort had buried the child. The boy was rescued and raised in Corsica by his enemy, Bertuccio (now Monte Cristo's servant), who gave the child the name "Benedetto". As an adult, Benedetto becomes a career criminal who is sentenced to the galleys with Caderousse, but after being freed by "Lord Wilmore", takes the identity of "Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti" (sponsored by the Count) and cons Danglars into betrothing his daughter Eugénie to him. Caderousse blackmails Andrea, threatening to reveal his past.
Cornered by "Abbé Busoni" while attempting to rob Monte Cristo's house, Caderousse begs to be given another chance, but Dantès grimly notes that the last two times he did so, Caderousse did not change. He forces Caderousse to write a letter to Danglars exposing Viscount Cavalcanti as an impostor and allows Caderousse to leave the house, but the moment Caderousse leaves the estate, he is stabbed in the back by Andrea. Caderousse manages to dictate and sign a deathbed statement identifying his killer, and Monte Cristo reveals his true identity to Caderousse moments before Caderousse dies.
Ali Pasha, the ruler of Yannina (in French, Janina), was betrayed to the Turks by Fernand. After his death, his wife Vasiliki and his daughter Haydée were sold into slavery by Fernand; subsequently, Haydée was located and rescued by Dantès and becomes the Count's ward. The Count manipulates Danglars into researching the event, which is published in a newspaper. As a result, Fernand is brought to trial for his crimes. Haydée testifies against him, and Fernand is disgraced.
Mercédès, still as attractive as before, alone recognizes Monte Cristo as Dantès. When Albert blames Monte Cristo for his father's downfall and publicly challenges him to a duel, Mercédès goes secretly to Monte Cristo and begs him to spare her son. During this interview, she learns the entire truth of his arrest and imprisonment. She later reveals the truth to Albert, which causes Albert to make a public apology to Monte Cristo. Albert and Mercédès disown Fernand, who is also confronted with Dantès' true identity and subsequently commits suicide. The mother and son depart to build a new life free of disgrace. Albert enlists and goes to Africa as a soldier in order to rebuild his life and honor under a new name, and Mercédès begins a solitary life in Marseille.
Villefort's daughter by his first wife, Valentine, stands to inherit the entire fortune of her grandfather (Noirtier) and of her mother's parents (the Saint-Mérans), while his second wife, Héloïse, seeks the fortune for her small son Édouard. Monte Cristo is aware of Héloïse's intentions, and "innocently" introduces her to the technique of poison. Héloïse fatally poisons the Saint-Mérans, so that Valentine inherits their fortune. However, Valentine is disinherited by Noirtier in an attempt to prevent Valentine's impending marriage with Franz d'Épinay. The marriage is cancelled when d'Épinay learns that his father (believed assassinated by Bonapartists) was killed by Noirtier in a duel. Afterwards, Valentine is reinstated in Noirtier's will. After a failed attempt on Noirtier's life which instead claims the life of Noirtier's servant Barrois, Héloïse then targets Valentine so that Édouard will finally get the fortune. However, Valentine is the prime suspect in her father's eyes in the deaths of the Saint-Merans and Barrois.
After Monte Cristo learns that Morrel's son Maximilien is in love with Valentine de Villefort, he saves her by making it appear as though Héloïse's plan to poison Valentine has succeeded and that Valentine is dead. Villefort learns from Noirtier that Héloïse is the real murderer and confronts her, giving her the choice of a public execution or committing suicide by her own poison.
Fleeing after Caderousse's letter exposes him, Andrea gets as far as Compiègne before he is arrested and brought back to Paris, where he is prosecuted by Villefort. Andrea reveals that he is Villefort's son and was rescued after Villefort buried him alive. Villefort admits his guilt and flees the court. He rushes home to stop his wife's suicide but he is too late; she has poisoned her son as well. Dantès confronts Villefort, revealing his true identity, but this, combined with the shock of the trial's revelations and the death of both his wife and son, drives Villefort insane. Dantès tries to resuscitate Édouard but fails, and despairs that his revenge has gone too far. It is only after he revisits his cell in the Château d'If that Dantès is reassured that his cause is just and his conscience is clear, that he can fulfill his plan while being able to forgive both his enemies and himself.
After the Count's manipulation of the bond market, all that Danglars is left with is a tarnished reputation and five million francs he has been holding in deposit for the hospitals. The Count demands this sum to fulfill their credit agreement, and Danglars embezzles the hospital fund. Abandoning his wife, Danglars flees to Italy with the Count's receipt, hoping to live in Vienna in anonymous prosperity. However, while leaving Rome he is kidnapped by the Count's agent Luigi Vampa. Danglars is imprisoned the same way that Dantès was. Forced to pay exorbitant prices for food, Danglars eventually signs away all but 50,000 francs of the stolen five million (which Dantès anonymously returns to the hospitals). Nearly driven mad by his ordeal, Danglars finally repents his crimes. Dantès forgives Danglars and allows him to leave with his freedom and the money he has left.
Maximilien Morrel, believing Valentine to be dead, contemplates suicide after her funeral. Dantès reveals his true identity and explains that he rescued Morrel's father from bankruptcy, disgrace and suicide years earlier. He persuades Maximilien to delay his suicide for a month. On the island of Monte Cristo a month later, Dantès presents Valentine to Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events.
Having found peace, Dantès leaves for an unknown destination to find comfort and possibly love with Haydée, who has declared her love for him.
Characters
There are a large number of characters in the book, and the importance of many of them is not immediately obvious. Furthermore, their fates are often so interwoven that their stories overlap significantly. The chart below shows the relationships between the many characters of the novel.
Character relationships in The Count of Monte Cristo
Edmond Dantès and his aliases
* Edmond Dantès (born 1796) — Dantès is initially a generally well-liked sailor who is inexperienced - but not in his profession - and seems to have everything going for him, including a beautiful fiancée (Mercédès) and an impending promotion to ship's captain. After his transformation into the Count of Monte Cristo, his original name is revealed to his main enemies only as each revenge is completed, often driving his already weakened victims into despair.
* Number 34 — Early in Dantès' stay in prison, the governor of the Château d'If is replaced. This governor does not feel it is worth his time to learn the names of all the prisoners, and instead chooses to refer to them by the numbers of their cells. Thus, Dantès is called Number 34 during his imprisonment.
* Chief Clerk of Thomson and French — Shortly after Edmond escapes and learns of Morrel's sorry state of affairs, he disguises himself as an English senior agent of the banking firm of Thomson and French, with whom Morrel deals, and in this form sees Morrel for the first time in fifteen years. Precise and formal, this persona is a phlegmatic, serious banking officer.
* Count of Monte Cristo — The persona that Edmond assumes when he escapes from his incarceration and while he carries out his dreadful vengeance. This persona is marked by a pale countenance and a smile which can be diabolical or angelic. Educated and mysterious, this alias is trusted in Paris and fascinates the people.
* Lord Wilmore — The English persona in which Dantès performs seemingly random acts of generosity. The Englishman is eccentric and refuses to speak French. This eccentric man, in his kindness, is almost the opposite of the Count of Monte Cristo and Dantès exploits this to persuade Villefort that Lord Wilmore is an enemy of Monte Cristo.
* Sinbad the Sailor — The persona that Edmond assumes when he saves the Morrel family. Edmond signs a letter to Mlle Julie using this persona, which was accompanied by a large diamond and a red satin purse. (Sinbad the sailor is the common English translation of the original French Simbad le marin.)
* Abbé Busoni — The persona that Edmond puts forth when he needs deep trust from others because the name itself demands respect via religious authority.
* Monsieur Zaccone — Dantès, in the guise of both Abbé Busoni and Lord Wilmore, told an investigator sent by Villefort that this was the Count of Monte Cristo's true name.
Dantès' allies
* Abbé Faria — Italian priest and sage; befriends Edmond while both are prisoners in the Château d'If, acts as a father for Edmond Dantès (as Dantès said once "I can have my revenge, thanks to you, my second father") and reveals the secret of the island of Monte Cristo to Edmond. Becomes the surrogate father of Edmond, while imprisoned, digging a tunnel to freedom he educates Edmond in languages, economics, and all the current sciences (including chemistry which comes to Dantès' aid greatly during his revenge plan) and is the figurative father of the Count of Monte Cristo. He dies from the third attack of catalepsy.
* Giovanni Bertuccio — The Count of Monte Cristo's steward and very loyal servant; in the Count's own words, Bertuccio "knows no impossibility" and is sure of never being dismissed from the Count's service because, as the Count states, he (the Count) will "never find anyone better." He had declared a vendetta against Monsieur de Villefort for Villefort's refusal to prosecute the murderer of Bertuccio's brother. Tracking Villefort to Auteuil, he stabs Villefort, leaving him to die, but by coincidence becomes involved in Villefort's personal life by rescuing his illegitimate newborn, later named Benedetto (Italian for blessed) by Bertuccio. Years later, he is jailed on suspicion of the murder of a jeweler, but is released when Caderousse is arrested and proved to have committed the crime, and "Abbé Busoni" gives him a recommendation for employment to Monte Cristo.
* Luigi Vampa — celebrated Italian bandit and fugitive; owes much to the Count of Monte Cristo, and is instrumental in many of the Count's plans. He enjoys reading classic historical works dealing with great military leaders.
* Peppino — Formerly a shepherd helping Luigi Vampa, he later becomes a bandit and full member of Vampa's gang. He is condemned to be executed by Roman authorities, but Monte Cristo secures his pardon from the Pope. His alias is Rocca Priori.
* Haydée (also transliterated as Haidée) — The daughter of Ali Pasha of Yannina, eventually bought by the Count of Monte Cristo from the Sultan Mahmoud. Even though she was purchased as a slave, Monte Cristo treats her with the utmost respect. She lives in seclusion by her own choice, but is usually very aware of everything that is happening outside. She usually goes to local operas accompanied by the Count. At the trial of the Count de Morcerf, she provides the key evidence required to convict Fernand of treason and felony. She is deeply in love with the Count of Monte Cristo, and although he feels he is too old for her, he eventually reciprocates.
* Ali — Monte Cristo's Nubian slave, a mute (his tongue had been cut out as part of his punishment for intruding into the harem of the Bey of Tunis; his hands and head had also been scheduled to be cut off, but the Count bargained with the Bey for Ali's life). He is completely loyal and utterly devoted to the Count. Ali is also a master of his horses.
* Baptistin — Monte Cristo's valet-de-chambre. Although only in Monte Cristo's service for little more than a year, he has become the number three man in the Count's household and seems to have proven himself completely trustworthy and loyal, except for some financial irregularities that some employers, and certainly his own, were considering practically normal for a servant (i.e., when buying cosmetics or other supplies for his employer, he was inflating the price and pocketing the difference). After his probationary year in Monte Cristo's service expires, the Count informs Baptistin that he "suits" him, but warns him that the financial irregularities are to cease immediately.
Morcerf family
* Mercédès Mondego — (née: Herrera) Edmond's fiancée at the beginning until their planned marriage is interrupted by Edmond's imprisonment. Eighteen months later, she marries cousin Fernand Mondego (while still pledging eternal love to Dantès) because she believes Edmond is dead and feels alone in the world. Thus, she lives as Mme. the Countess de Morcerf in Paris and bears a son. Dantès's release and reappearance as the Count complicates matters as her love for him is evident. But, at the end of the story, Dantès comes to realize that it is Haydée he loves. He has a respect for Mercédès, but leaves her to live her life in Marseille in the house in which he lived as a young man (which he had bought).
* Fernand Mondego — Later known as the Count de Morcerf. A Catalan and Edmond's rival and suitor for Mercédès; will do anything to get her, including bearing false witness against Edmond. He is overall a representation of evil, as he lies and betrays throughout his military career for his own personal gain. When confronted by his nefarious acts, disgraced in public and abandoned by his wife and son, he commits suicide.
* Albert de Morcerf — Son of Mercédès and the Count de Morcerf. Is befriended by Monte Cristo in Rome; viewed by Monte Cristo as the son that should have been his with Mercédès, but does not have as strong a filial bond with him as does Maximilien Morrel. At the end, he realizes his father's crimes and, along with his mother Mercédès, abandons him and his name.
Danglars family
* Baron Danglars — Initially the supercargo (the owner's agent) on the same ship on which Dantès served as first mate; he longs to be wealthy and powerful and becomes jealous of Dantès for his favor with Pierre Morrel. He also developed a grudge against Dantès, with whom he has had some arguments regarding the accuracy of his accounting. The source of his wealth is not clear but is possibly due to unscrupulous financial dealings while in the French army and has reportedly been multiplied by speculation and marriage. His intelligence is only evident where money is concerned; otherwise he is a member of the nouveau riche with only superficial good taste (he cannot even tell the difference between original paintings and copies) and no true family feelings. Although arguably guiltier than Morcerf, Caderousse and Villefort, having written the denunciation letter, he is the only one whom Dantès forgives besides Caderousse,who died immediately afterward, and is partially spared, ending up a fugitive with barely enough money to support himself, but alive and with his sanity.
* Madame Danglars — Full name is Hermine Danglars (formerly Baroness Hermine de Nargonne during a previous marriage), née de Servieux. Was independently wealthy before marrying Danglars. With help and private information from her close friend and lover Ministerial Secretary Lucien Debray, Madame Danglars secretly invests money and is able to amass over a million francs for her own disposal. During her marriage to the Baron de Nargonne, she had an affair with Gérard de Villefort, with whom she had an illegitimate son (See Benedetto).
* Eugénie Danglars — The daughter of Danglars, engaged at first to Albert de Morcerf and later to "Andrea Cavalcanti" but who would rather stay unwed, living "an independent and unfettered life" as an artist. She dresses as a man and runs away with another girl, Louise d'Armilly after the collapse of her intended marriage to Andrea Cavalcanti; these connotations were considered scandalous. During their flight from Paris, she and Louise, traveling as brother and sister (Eugénie had disguised herself in men's clothing), stopping at an inn at Compiègne requested a room with two beds, yet Benedetto found them in bed together.
Villefort family
* Gérard de Villefort — A royal prosecutor who has even denounced his own father (Noirtier) in order to protect his own career. He is responsible for imprisoning Edmond Dantès to protect his political aspirations. After his attempted infanticide is publicly revealed and his second wife kills herself and their son, he loses his sanity.
* Renée de Villefort, née de Saint-Méran — Gérard de Villefort's first wife, mother of Valentine de Villefort.
* Monsieur le Marquis de Saint-Méran and Madame la Marquise de Saint-Méran — Renée's parents and Valentine's maternal grandparents. Both poisoned by Valentine's stepmother in order for Valentine to inherit their wealth which, through a planned series of further deaths in the family (Valentine's and her grandfather's), will be inherited by Valentine's half brother.
* Valentine de Villefort — The daughter of Gérard de Villefort and his first wife, Renée (née de Saint-Méran). She falls in love with Maximilien Morrel, is engaged to Baron Franz d'Épinay, is almost poisoned by her stepmother, saved once by her grandfather Noirtier, and is finally saved by Dantès. Valentine is the quintessential (French, nineteenth century) female: beautiful, docile, and loving. The only person she feels that she can confide in is her invalid grandfather.
* Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort — The father of Gérard de Villefort and grandfather of Valentine and Édouard (and, without knowing it, of Benedetto as well). After suffering an apoplectic stroke, Noirtier becomes mute and a paralytic, but can communicate with Valentine, Gérard and his servant Barrois through use of his eyelids and eyes. Although utterly dependent on others, he helps to save Valentine from the poison attempts of her stepmother and sabotages her marriage arrangement to Baron Franz d'Épinay. An ardent Jacobin Revolutionary turned Bonapartist, he is revealed to be the President of a club of Bonapartists conspiring to overthrow the restored monarchy and re-establish Napoleon as Emperor. Gérard de Villefort had realized that Edmond intended to fulfill his dying captain's last wish by conveying a letter from the imprisoned Napoleon on Elba to Noirtier in Paris, and therefore imprisoned Edmond (who knew nothing about the family connection) in order to hide the fact that his father was a conspirator, which might have hindered Gérard's advancement.
* Héloïse de Villefort — The murderous second wife of Villefort, who is motivated to protect and nurture her only son and ensure his inheritance. She becomes a murdereress with the assistance of Monte Cristo who discreetly and with purposeful indirectness suggests which poison to use, puts the poison into her possession (for "medicinal purposes”), and gives her the technical know-how and the philosophical outlook to commit murder (her motivation is clearly presented as that of a mother whose love for her son has taken precedence over her morals and reason). Villefort threatens to have her arrested and executed unless she kills herself and she does so before her husband, having changed his mind, gets a chance to stop her.
* Édouard de Villefort — the only legitimate son of Villefort. A very intelligent but extremely spoiled and selfish little boy who is unfortunately swept up in his mother's greed (his mother kills him before committing suicide). (His name is sometimes translated as Edward de Villefort.) The fact that he was an innocent victim makes Dantès feel that he went too far in his revenge and explains why he treats Danglars more leniently.
* Benedetto — The illegitimate son of de Villefort and Hermine de Nargonne (now Baroness Hermine Danglars); born in Auteuil, raised by Bertuccio (later Monte Cristo's steward) and his sister-in-law, Assunta in the little village of Rogliano, at the extremity of Cape Corso. Murderer and thief. Is helped to escape from a prison galley and travels to Paris to become "Andrea Cavalcanti".
Morrel family
* Pierre Morrel — Edmond Dantès's patron and owner of the major Marseille shipping firm of Morrel & Son. He is a very honest and shrewd businessman and is also very fond of Edmond and eager to advance his interests. After Edmond is arrested, he tries his hardest to help Edmond and is hopeful of his release when Napoleon is restored to power, but because of his sympathies for the Bonapartist cause, he is forced to back down and abandon all hope after the Hundred Days and second Restoration of the monarchy. Between 1825 and 1830, his firm undergoes critical financial reverses due to the loss of all of his ships at sea, and he is at the point of bankruptcy and suicide when Monte Cristo (in the guise of an English clerk from the financial firm of Thompson and French) sets events in motion which not only save Pierre Morrel's reputation and honor but also his life. It is revealed that on his deathbed he realized his savior was Dantès.
* Maximilien Morrel (Maximilian in some English translations) — He is the son of Edmond's employer, Pierre Morrel, a captain in the Spahi regiment of the Army stationed in Algiers and an Officer of the Legion of Honor. After Edmond's escape and the Count of Monte Cristo's debut in Paris, Maximilien becomes a very good friend to the Count of Monte Cristo, yet still manages to unknowingly force the Count to change many of his plans, partly by falling in love with Valentine de Villefort.
* Julie Herbault — Daughter of Edmond's patron, Pierre Morrel, she marries Emmanuel Herbault.
* Emmanuel Herbault — Julie Herbault's husband; he had previously worked in Pierre Morrel's shipping firm and is the brother-in-law of Maximilien Morrel and son-in-law of Pierre Morrel.
Other important characters
* Gaspard Caderousse — A tailor and originally a neighbour and friend of Dantès, he witnesses while drunk the writing by Danglars of the denunciation of Dantès. After Dantès is arrested, he is too cowardly to come forward with the truth. Caderousse is somewhat different from the other members of the conspiracy in that it is what he does not do, rather than what he actually plans, that leads to Dantès' arrest. He moves out of town, becomes an innkeeper, falls on hard times, and supplements his income by fencing stolen goods from Bertuccio. After his escape from prison, Dantès (and the reader) first learn the fates of many of the characters from Caderousse. Unlike the other members of the conspiracy, Monte Cristo offers Caderousse more than one chance to redeem himself, but the latter's greed proves his undoing, and he becomes in turn a murderer, a thief and a blackmailer. He is eventually murdered by Benedetto.
* Louis Dantès — Edmond's father. After his son's imprisonment and believing Edmond dead, he eventually starves himself to death.
* Baron Franz d'Épinay — A friend of Albert de Morcerf, he is the first fiancé of Valentine de Villefort. Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort killed Franz's father General d'Épinay in a lawful duel after unsuccessfully trying to convince him to support plans to return Napoleon to power, but it was assumed by the public that the general was assassinated; Franz only learns the truth when Noirtier reveals it to stop Franz from marrying Valentine.
* Lucien Debray — Secretary to the Minister of the Interior. A friend of Albert de Morcerf, and a lover of Madame Danglars, to whom he funnels insider information regarding investments.
* Beauchamp — A leading journalist and friend of Albert de Morcerf (son of Fernand Mondego, the self-styled "Count de Morcerf"), he travels to Yannina to confirm the story about Fernand's background that leads to public embarrassment and Fernand's suicide.
* Raoul, Baron de Château-Renaud — A member of a very ancient and noble family and another friend of Albert de Morcerf. Maximilien Morrel saved Renaud's life in Algeria.
* Louise d'Armilly — Eugénie Danglars' music instructor, actually her closest friend, but not allowed to be seen in public with Eugénie because of the possibility of Louise some day becoming a professional artist in a theater setting. Eugénie and Louise run off together.
* Monsieur de Boville — originally an inspector of prisons (he actually meets Dantès in the Château d'If), he is later promoted to a senior rank of the Paris police detective force, where he does some investigating of the Count of Monte Cristo at Villefort's orders. By the close of the book, he has become a receiver-general of funds for the hospitals.
* Barrois — Old, trusted servant of Monsieur de Noirtier, dies accidentally after drinking poisoned lemonade from a decanter brought to Noirtier, and from which Noirtier had drunk a little. The poison was probably brucine. Having used brucine as medication for paralysis, Noirtier was not affected.
* Monsieur d'Avrigny — Family doctor treating the Villefort family, he alerts Villefort when he suspects poisoning. He suspects Valentine until she becomes a victim herself. Very discreet, he is willing to keep the secret as long as Villefort solves the problem, even secretly and informally, or even illegally (for instance, by locking up or poisoning the suspect). However, he threatens to reveal the secret if Villefort fails to take action.
* Major (also Marquis) Bartolomeo Cavalcanti — Old man paid by Monte Cristo to play the role of Prince Andrea Cavalcanti's father. He is not "a worthy patrician of Lucca" but a man who plays regularly at the gaming table of the baths of Lucca.
Publication
The Count of Monte Cristo was originally published in the Journal des Débats in eighteen parts. Publication ran from August 28, 1844 through to January 15, 1846. It was first published in Paris by Pétion in 18 volumes (1844-5). Complete versions of the novel in the original French were published throughout the nineteenth century.
The most common English translation was originally published in 1846 by Chapman and Hall. Most unabridged English editions of the novel, including the Modern Library and Oxford World's Classics editions, use this translation, although Penguin Classics published a new translation by Robin Buss in 1996. Buss' translation updated the language, is more accessible to modern readers, and restored content that was modified in the 1846 translation due to Victorian English social restrictions (for example, references to Eugénie's lesbian traits and behavior) to Dumas' actual publication. Other English translations of the unabridged work exist, but are rarely seen in print and most borrow from the 1846 anonymous translation.
The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through to the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. It is primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, forgiveness and death, and is told in the style of an adventure story.
Background to the plot
Dumas has himself indicated that he had the idea for the revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo from a story which he had found in a book compiled by Jacques Peuchet, a French police archivist and published in 1838, after the death of the author. Dumas included this essay in one of the editions from 1846. Peuchet related the tale of a shoemaker named Pierre Picaud, who was living in Nîmes in 1807. Picaud had been engaged to marry a rich woman, but three jealous friends falsely accused him of being a spy for England. He was imprisoned for seven years. During his imprisonment a dying fellow prisoner bequeathed him a treasure hidden in Milan. Picaud was released in 1814. He took possession of the treasure and returned under another name to Paris. Picaud spent ten years plotting his successful revenge against his former friends. In another of the "True Stories" Peuchet relates the tale of a terrible affair of poisoning in a family. This story, also quoted in the Pleiade edition, has obviously served as model for the chapter of the murders inside the Villefort family. The introduction to the Pleiade edition mentions other sources from real life: the abbé Faria really existed and died in 1819 after a life with much resemblance to that of the Faria in the novel. As for Dantès, his fate is quite different from his model in Peuchet's manuscript, since the latter is murdered by the "Caderousse" of the plot. But Dantès has "alter egos" in two other works of Dumas: First in "Pauline" from 1838, then, more significantly, in "Georges" from 1843 where a young man with black ancestry is preparing a revenge against white people who had humiliated him.
Historical background
The success of Monte Cristo coincides with that of France's Second Empire and besides the description of the return of Napoleon I in 1815 Dumas hints at least once to the events: the governor at the Château d'If is promoted to a position at the castle of Ham. The attitude of Dumas towards "bonapartisme" was extremely complicated and involved. This conflict dates back to his father, who was a coloured man, borne of a slave and who became a famous general during the French Revolution. When new racist laws were applied in 1802 the general was dismissed from the army and he was profoundly bitter towards Napoleon when he died in 1806. An event in 1840 renewed the patriotic support for the Bonaparte family in the population: the ashes of Napoleon I were brought to France and became object of veneration in the church of Les Invalides.
In "Causeries" from 1860, Dumas prints a short paper on the genesis of Monte-Cristo. This essay, called "État civil du "Comte de Monte-Cristo"" is included in the Pléiade edition (Paris, 1981) as an "annexe". It appears that Dumas had close and intimate contacts with members of the Bonaparte family while living in Florence in 1841. In a small boat he sailed around the island of Monte-Cristo accompanied by one of the young princes – a cousin to he who was to be emperor of France ten years later. During this trip he promised the prince that he would write a novel with the island's name as title. At this moment the future emperor was imprisoned at the citadel of Ham – a name that is mentioned in the novel. Dumas did visit him there, but he does not mention it in "Etat civil..." Louis Napoleon was imprisoned for life, but he fled in disguise. This happened in 1846 while Dumas's novel was already a gigantic success. Just as Dantès, Louis Napoleon reappeared in Paris as a powerful and enigmatic man of the world. In 1848, however, Dumas did not vote for Louis Napoleon, but the novel may have contributed – against the will of the writer – to the victory of the future Napoleon III.
A chronology of The Count of Monte Cristo and Bonapartism
Dumas grandfather:
1793: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas is promoted to the rank of general in the army of the First French Republic.
1794: He disapproves of the revolutionary terror in Western France.
1795-97: He becomes famous. Fights under Napoleon.
1802: Black officers are dismissed from the army. The Empire reestablishes slavery.
1802: Birth of his son, Alexandre Dumas père.
1806: Th. A. Dumas dies, still bitter towards the injustice of the Empire.
Dumas father:
1832: The only son of Napoleon I dies.
1836: A. Dumas is already a famous writer.
1836: First putsch by Louis Napoleon, aged 28. Fails completely.
1840: June. A law is passed to bring the ashes of Napoleon I to France.
1840: August. Second putsch of Louis Napoleon. He is imprisoned for life and becomes known as the candidate for the imperial succession.
1841: Dumas lives in Florence and becomes acquainted with King Jérôme and his son, Napoléon.
1841-44: The novel is conceived and written.
1846: The novel is a European bestseller.
1846: Louis Napoleon escapes from his prison.
1848: French Second Republic. Louis Napoleon is elected its first president but Dumas does not vote for him.
1857: Dumas publishes État civil du Comte de Monte-Cristo
Plot summary
Edmond Dantès
Edmond Dantès, a young and successful merchant sailor recently granted his own command by his dying captain Leclère, returns to Marseille to marry his fiancée Mercédès. Leclère, a supporter of the exiled Napoléon I, charges Dantès on his deathbed to deliver two objects: a package to Maréchal Bertrand (who had been exiled with Napoleon Bonaparte to the isle of Elba), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. Subsequently, an anonymous letter accuses Dantès of being a Bonapartist traitor. The letter is later revealed to have been written by Mercédès' cousin Fernand Mondego and Danglars, Dantès' ship's supercargo. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, assumes the duty of investigating the matter. Villefort is normally considered a just man, but on discovering that the recipient of the letter from Elba is his Bonapartist father, he ultimately chooses to save his political career and condemns Dantès without trial to life imprisonment and protects his father by destroying the incriminating letter.
During his fourteen years imprisonment in the Château d'If, Edmond is visited in his cell by the Abbé Faria, a priest and fellow prisoner trying to tunnel his way to freedom. Faria had been imprisoned for proposing a united Italy. In the Chateau d'If, he was known as "The Mad Priest", claiming to be in possession of a massive treasure, and offering to reward the guards handsomely, should they release him. Faria provides Dantès with education in subjects including languages, history, economics, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry and the manners of political society. The priest, ill from a form of catalepsy and knowing that he will soon die, confides in Dantès the location of a treasure hoard on the Italian islet of Monte Cristo. After Faria's death the following year, Dantès escapes and is rescued by a smuggling ship. After several months of working with the smugglers, he gets the opportunity to go to Monte Cristo for a goods exchange. Dantès fakes an injury and convinces the smugglers to temporarily leave him on Monte Cristo. He then makes his way to the hiding place of the treasure. He returns to Marseilles, where he learns that his father has died in poverty. He buys himself a yacht and hides the rest of the treasure on board. With his new found wealth and education, Dantès buys the island of Monte Cristo and the title of Count from the Tuscan Government.
Returning to Marseille, Dantès puts into action his plans for revenge. Traveling in disguise as the Abbé Busoni, Edmond first meets Caderousse, whose intervention might have saved Dantès from imprisonment. Now living in poverty, Caderousse believes his current state is punishment by God for his jealousy and cowardice. Dantès learns from Caderousse how his other enemies have all become wealthy and prosperous since Dantès' betrayal. Edmond gives Caderousse a diamond that can be either a chance to redeem himself, or a trap that will lead to his ruin. Caderousse murders the jeweler to whom he sold the diamond and is sentenced to life in the prison galleys. Dantès (using another disguise, this time as the English Lord Wilmore) frees Caderousse and gives him another chance at redemption. Caderousse does not take it, and becomes a career criminal.
Learning that his old employer Morrel is on the verge of bankruptcy and disgrace after his ships have been lost at sea, Dantès (in the guise of a senior clerk of the banking firm of Thomson and French of Rome) buys all of Morrel's outstanding debts and gives Morrel an extension of three months to fulfill his obligations. At the end of the three months and with no way to repay his debts, Morrel is about to commit suicide when he learns that all of his debts have been mysteriously paid and that one of his ships has returned with a full cargo (the ship had been secretly rebuilt and laden by Dantès).
The Count of Monte Cristo
The story then moves forward nine years. Dantès debuts in public as the Count of Monte Cristo, a mysterious and fabulously rich aristocrat. He surfaces first in Rome, where he becomes acquainted with the Baron Franz d'Épinay, a young aristocrat, and Viscount Albert de Morcerf, Mercédès's and Fernand's son. He later rescues Albert from Italian bandits. Dantès subsequently moves to Paris, and with Albert de Morcerf's introduction, becomes the sensation of the city. Due to his knowledge and rhetorical power, even his enemies - who do not recognize him as Edmond Dantès - find him charming, and because of his status they all desire his friendship.
Monte Cristo meets Danglars, who has become a wealthy banker. Monte Cristo dazzles the crass Danglars with his seemingly endless wealth, eventually persuading him to extend him a 6,000,000 francs credit, and withdraws nine hundred thousand. Under the terms of the arrangement, Monte Cristo can demand access to the remainder at any time. The Count manipulates the bond market, through a false telegraph signal, and quickly destroys a large portion of Danglars' fortune, and the rest of it begins to rapidly disappear through mysterious bankruptcies, suspensions of payment, and more bad luck on the Stock Exchange.
Monte Cristo threatens Villefort with knowledge of his past affair with Madame Danglars, which produced a son. Believing the child to be stillborn, Villefort had buried the child. The boy was rescued and raised in Corsica by his enemy, Bertuccio (now Monte Cristo's servant), who gave the child the name "Benedetto". As an adult, Benedetto becomes a career criminal who is sentenced to the galleys with Caderousse, but after being freed by "Lord Wilmore", takes the identity of "Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti" (sponsored by the Count) and cons Danglars into betrothing his daughter Eugénie to him. Caderousse blackmails Andrea, threatening to reveal his past.
Cornered by "Abbé Busoni" while attempting to rob Monte Cristo's house, Caderousse begs to be given another chance, but Dantès grimly notes that the last two times he did so, Caderousse did not change. He forces Caderousse to write a letter to Danglars exposing Viscount Cavalcanti as an impostor and allows Caderousse to leave the house, but the moment Caderousse leaves the estate, he is stabbed in the back by Andrea. Caderousse manages to dictate and sign a deathbed statement identifying his killer, and Monte Cristo reveals his true identity to Caderousse moments before Caderousse dies.
Ali Pasha, the ruler of Yannina (in French, Janina), was betrayed to the Turks by Fernand. After his death, his wife Vasiliki and his daughter Haydée were sold into slavery by Fernand; subsequently, Haydée was located and rescued by Dantès and becomes the Count's ward. The Count manipulates Danglars into researching the event, which is published in a newspaper. As a result, Fernand is brought to trial for his crimes. Haydée testifies against him, and Fernand is disgraced.
Mercédès, still as attractive as before, alone recognizes Monte Cristo as Dantès. When Albert blames Monte Cristo for his father's downfall and publicly challenges him to a duel, Mercédès goes secretly to Monte Cristo and begs him to spare her son. During this interview, she learns the entire truth of his arrest and imprisonment. She later reveals the truth to Albert, which causes Albert to make a public apology to Monte Cristo. Albert and Mercédès disown Fernand, who is also confronted with Dantès' true identity and subsequently commits suicide. The mother and son depart to build a new life free of disgrace. Albert enlists and goes to Africa as a soldier in order to rebuild his life and honor under a new name, and Mercédès begins a solitary life in Marseille.
Villefort's daughter by his first wife, Valentine, stands to inherit the entire fortune of her grandfather (Noirtier) and of her mother's parents (the Saint-Mérans), while his second wife, Héloïse, seeks the fortune for her small son Édouard. Monte Cristo is aware of Héloïse's intentions, and "innocently" introduces her to the technique of poison. Héloïse fatally poisons the Saint-Mérans, so that Valentine inherits their fortune. However, Valentine is disinherited by Noirtier in an attempt to prevent Valentine's impending marriage with Franz d'Épinay. The marriage is cancelled when d'Épinay learns that his father (believed assassinated by Bonapartists) was killed by Noirtier in a duel. Afterwards, Valentine is reinstated in Noirtier's will. After a failed attempt on Noirtier's life which instead claims the life of Noirtier's servant Barrois, Héloïse then targets Valentine so that Édouard will finally get the fortune. However, Valentine is the prime suspect in her father's eyes in the deaths of the Saint-Merans and Barrois.
After Monte Cristo learns that Morrel's son Maximilien is in love with Valentine de Villefort, he saves her by making it appear as though Héloïse's plan to poison Valentine has succeeded and that Valentine is dead. Villefort learns from Noirtier that Héloïse is the real murderer and confronts her, giving her the choice of a public execution or committing suicide by her own poison.
Fleeing after Caderousse's letter exposes him, Andrea gets as far as Compiègne before he is arrested and brought back to Paris, where he is prosecuted by Villefort. Andrea reveals that he is Villefort's son and was rescued after Villefort buried him alive. Villefort admits his guilt and flees the court. He rushes home to stop his wife's suicide but he is too late; she has poisoned her son as well. Dantès confronts Villefort, revealing his true identity, but this, combined with the shock of the trial's revelations and the death of both his wife and son, drives Villefort insane. Dantès tries to resuscitate Édouard but fails, and despairs that his revenge has gone too far. It is only after he revisits his cell in the Château d'If that Dantès is reassured that his cause is just and his conscience is clear, that he can fulfill his plan while being able to forgive both his enemies and himself.
After the Count's manipulation of the bond market, all that Danglars is left with is a tarnished reputation and five million francs he has been holding in deposit for the hospitals. The Count demands this sum to fulfill their credit agreement, and Danglars embezzles the hospital fund. Abandoning his wife, Danglars flees to Italy with the Count's receipt, hoping to live in Vienna in anonymous prosperity. However, while leaving Rome he is kidnapped by the Count's agent Luigi Vampa. Danglars is imprisoned the same way that Dantès was. Forced to pay exorbitant prices for food, Danglars eventually signs away all but 50,000 francs of the stolen five million (which Dantès anonymously returns to the hospitals). Nearly driven mad by his ordeal, Danglars finally repents his crimes. Dantès forgives Danglars and allows him to leave with his freedom and the money he has left.
Maximilien Morrel, believing Valentine to be dead, contemplates suicide after her funeral. Dantès reveals his true identity and explains that he rescued Morrel's father from bankruptcy, disgrace and suicide years earlier. He persuades Maximilien to delay his suicide for a month. On the island of Monte Cristo a month later, Dantès presents Valentine to Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events.
Having found peace, Dantès leaves for an unknown destination to find comfort and possibly love with Haydée, who has declared her love for him.
Characters
There are a large number of characters in the book, and the importance of many of them is not immediately obvious. Furthermore, their fates are often so interwoven that their stories overlap significantly. The chart below shows the relationships between the many characters of the novel.
Character relationships in The Count of Monte Cristo
Edmond Dantès and his aliases
* Edmond Dantès (born 1796) — Dantès is initially a generally well-liked sailor who is inexperienced - but not in his profession - and seems to have everything going for him, including a beautiful fiancée (Mercédès) and an impending promotion to ship's captain. After his transformation into the Count of Monte Cristo, his original name is revealed to his main enemies only as each revenge is completed, often driving his already weakened victims into despair.
* Number 34 — Early in Dantès' stay in prison, the governor of the Château d'If is replaced. This governor does not feel it is worth his time to learn the names of all the prisoners, and instead chooses to refer to them by the numbers of their cells. Thus, Dantès is called Number 34 during his imprisonment.
* Chief Clerk of Thomson and French — Shortly after Edmond escapes and learns of Morrel's sorry state of affairs, he disguises himself as an English senior agent of the banking firm of Thomson and French, with whom Morrel deals, and in this form sees Morrel for the first time in fifteen years. Precise and formal, this persona is a phlegmatic, serious banking officer.
* Count of Monte Cristo — The persona that Edmond assumes when he escapes from his incarceration and while he carries out his dreadful vengeance. This persona is marked by a pale countenance and a smile which can be diabolical or angelic. Educated and mysterious, this alias is trusted in Paris and fascinates the people.
* Lord Wilmore — The English persona in which Dantès performs seemingly random acts of generosity. The Englishman is eccentric and refuses to speak French. This eccentric man, in his kindness, is almost the opposite of the Count of Monte Cristo and Dantès exploits this to persuade Villefort that Lord Wilmore is an enemy of Monte Cristo.
* Sinbad the Sailor — The persona that Edmond assumes when he saves the Morrel family. Edmond signs a letter to Mlle Julie using this persona, which was accompanied by a large diamond and a red satin purse. (Sinbad the sailor is the common English translation of the original French Simbad le marin.)
* Abbé Busoni — The persona that Edmond puts forth when he needs deep trust from others because the name itself demands respect via religious authority.
* Monsieur Zaccone — Dantès, in the guise of both Abbé Busoni and Lord Wilmore, told an investigator sent by Villefort that this was the Count of Monte Cristo's true name.
Dantès' allies
* Abbé Faria — Italian priest and sage; befriends Edmond while both are prisoners in the Château d'If, acts as a father for Edmond Dantès (as Dantès said once "I can have my revenge, thanks to you, my second father") and reveals the secret of the island of Monte Cristo to Edmond. Becomes the surrogate father of Edmond, while imprisoned, digging a tunnel to freedom he educates Edmond in languages, economics, and all the current sciences (including chemistry which comes to Dantès' aid greatly during his revenge plan) and is the figurative father of the Count of Monte Cristo. He dies from the third attack of catalepsy.
* Giovanni Bertuccio — The Count of Monte Cristo's steward and very loyal servant; in the Count's own words, Bertuccio "knows no impossibility" and is sure of never being dismissed from the Count's service because, as the Count states, he (the Count) will "never find anyone better." He had declared a vendetta against Monsieur de Villefort for Villefort's refusal to prosecute the murderer of Bertuccio's brother. Tracking Villefort to Auteuil, he stabs Villefort, leaving him to die, but by coincidence becomes involved in Villefort's personal life by rescuing his illegitimate newborn, later named Benedetto (Italian for blessed) by Bertuccio. Years later, he is jailed on suspicion of the murder of a jeweler, but is released when Caderousse is arrested and proved to have committed the crime, and "Abbé Busoni" gives him a recommendation for employment to Monte Cristo.
* Luigi Vampa — celebrated Italian bandit and fugitive; owes much to the Count of Monte Cristo, and is instrumental in many of the Count's plans. He enjoys reading classic historical works dealing with great military leaders.
* Peppino — Formerly a shepherd helping Luigi Vampa, he later becomes a bandit and full member of Vampa's gang. He is condemned to be executed by Roman authorities, but Monte Cristo secures his pardon from the Pope. His alias is Rocca Priori.
* Haydée (also transliterated as Haidée) — The daughter of Ali Pasha of Yannina, eventually bought by the Count of Monte Cristo from the Sultan Mahmoud. Even though she was purchased as a slave, Monte Cristo treats her with the utmost respect. She lives in seclusion by her own choice, but is usually very aware of everything that is happening outside. She usually goes to local operas accompanied by the Count. At the trial of the Count de Morcerf, she provides the key evidence required to convict Fernand of treason and felony. She is deeply in love with the Count of Monte Cristo, and although he feels he is too old for her, he eventually reciprocates.
* Ali — Monte Cristo's Nubian slave, a mute (his tongue had been cut out as part of his punishment for intruding into the harem of the Bey of Tunis; his hands and head had also been scheduled to be cut off, but the Count bargained with the Bey for Ali's life). He is completely loyal and utterly devoted to the Count. Ali is also a master of his horses.
* Baptistin — Monte Cristo's valet-de-chambre. Although only in Monte Cristo's service for little more than a year, he has become the number three man in the Count's household and seems to have proven himself completely trustworthy and loyal, except for some financial irregularities that some employers, and certainly his own, were considering practically normal for a servant (i.e., when buying cosmetics or other supplies for his employer, he was inflating the price and pocketing the difference). After his probationary year in Monte Cristo's service expires, the Count informs Baptistin that he "suits" him, but warns him that the financial irregularities are to cease immediately.
Morcerf family
* Mercédès Mondego — (née: Herrera) Edmond's fiancée at the beginning until their planned marriage is interrupted by Edmond's imprisonment. Eighteen months later, she marries cousin Fernand Mondego (while still pledging eternal love to Dantès) because she believes Edmond is dead and feels alone in the world. Thus, she lives as Mme. the Countess de Morcerf in Paris and bears a son. Dantès's release and reappearance as the Count complicates matters as her love for him is evident. But, at the end of the story, Dantès comes to realize that it is Haydée he loves. He has a respect for Mercédès, but leaves her to live her life in Marseille in the house in which he lived as a young man (which he had bought).
* Fernand Mondego — Later known as the Count de Morcerf. A Catalan and Edmond's rival and suitor for Mercédès; will do anything to get her, including bearing false witness against Edmond. He is overall a representation of evil, as he lies and betrays throughout his military career for his own personal gain. When confronted by his nefarious acts, disgraced in public and abandoned by his wife and son, he commits suicide.
* Albert de Morcerf — Son of Mercédès and the Count de Morcerf. Is befriended by Monte Cristo in Rome; viewed by Monte Cristo as the son that should have been his with Mercédès, but does not have as strong a filial bond with him as does Maximilien Morrel. At the end, he realizes his father's crimes and, along with his mother Mercédès, abandons him and his name.
Danglars family
* Baron Danglars — Initially the supercargo (the owner's agent) on the same ship on which Dantès served as first mate; he longs to be wealthy and powerful and becomes jealous of Dantès for his favor with Pierre Morrel. He also developed a grudge against Dantès, with whom he has had some arguments regarding the accuracy of his accounting. The source of his wealth is not clear but is possibly due to unscrupulous financial dealings while in the French army and has reportedly been multiplied by speculation and marriage. His intelligence is only evident where money is concerned; otherwise he is a member of the nouveau riche with only superficial good taste (he cannot even tell the difference between original paintings and copies) and no true family feelings. Although arguably guiltier than Morcerf, Caderousse and Villefort, having written the denunciation letter, he is the only one whom Dantès forgives besides Caderousse,who died immediately afterward, and is partially spared, ending up a fugitive with barely enough money to support himself, but alive and with his sanity.
* Madame Danglars — Full name is Hermine Danglars (formerly Baroness Hermine de Nargonne during a previous marriage), née de Servieux. Was independently wealthy before marrying Danglars. With help and private information from her close friend and lover Ministerial Secretary Lucien Debray, Madame Danglars secretly invests money and is able to amass over a million francs for her own disposal. During her marriage to the Baron de Nargonne, she had an affair with Gérard de Villefort, with whom she had an illegitimate son (See Benedetto).
* Eugénie Danglars — The daughter of Danglars, engaged at first to Albert de Morcerf and later to "Andrea Cavalcanti" but who would rather stay unwed, living "an independent and unfettered life" as an artist. She dresses as a man and runs away with another girl, Louise d'Armilly after the collapse of her intended marriage to Andrea Cavalcanti; these connotations were considered scandalous. During their flight from Paris, she and Louise, traveling as brother and sister (Eugénie had disguised herself in men's clothing), stopping at an inn at Compiègne requested a room with two beds, yet Benedetto found them in bed together.
Villefort family
* Gérard de Villefort — A royal prosecutor who has even denounced his own father (Noirtier) in order to protect his own career. He is responsible for imprisoning Edmond Dantès to protect his political aspirations. After his attempted infanticide is publicly revealed and his second wife kills herself and their son, he loses his sanity.
* Renée de Villefort, née de Saint-Méran — Gérard de Villefort's first wife, mother of Valentine de Villefort.
* Monsieur le Marquis de Saint-Méran and Madame la Marquise de Saint-Méran — Renée's parents and Valentine's maternal grandparents. Both poisoned by Valentine's stepmother in order for Valentine to inherit their wealth which, through a planned series of further deaths in the family (Valentine's and her grandfather's), will be inherited by Valentine's half brother.
* Valentine de Villefort — The daughter of Gérard de Villefort and his first wife, Renée (née de Saint-Méran). She falls in love with Maximilien Morrel, is engaged to Baron Franz d'Épinay, is almost poisoned by her stepmother, saved once by her grandfather Noirtier, and is finally saved by Dantès. Valentine is the quintessential (French, nineteenth century) female: beautiful, docile, and loving. The only person she feels that she can confide in is her invalid grandfather.
* Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort — The father of Gérard de Villefort and grandfather of Valentine and Édouard (and, without knowing it, of Benedetto as well). After suffering an apoplectic stroke, Noirtier becomes mute and a paralytic, but can communicate with Valentine, Gérard and his servant Barrois through use of his eyelids and eyes. Although utterly dependent on others, he helps to save Valentine from the poison attempts of her stepmother and sabotages her marriage arrangement to Baron Franz d'Épinay. An ardent Jacobin Revolutionary turned Bonapartist, he is revealed to be the President of a club of Bonapartists conspiring to overthrow the restored monarchy and re-establish Napoleon as Emperor. Gérard de Villefort had realized that Edmond intended to fulfill his dying captain's last wish by conveying a letter from the imprisoned Napoleon on Elba to Noirtier in Paris, and therefore imprisoned Edmond (who knew nothing about the family connection) in order to hide the fact that his father was a conspirator, which might have hindered Gérard's advancement.
* Héloïse de Villefort — The murderous second wife of Villefort, who is motivated to protect and nurture her only son and ensure his inheritance. She becomes a murdereress with the assistance of Monte Cristo who discreetly and with purposeful indirectness suggests which poison to use, puts the poison into her possession (for "medicinal purposes”), and gives her the technical know-how and the philosophical outlook to commit murder (her motivation is clearly presented as that of a mother whose love for her son has taken precedence over her morals and reason). Villefort threatens to have her arrested and executed unless she kills herself and she does so before her husband, having changed his mind, gets a chance to stop her.
* Édouard de Villefort — the only legitimate son of Villefort. A very intelligent but extremely spoiled and selfish little boy who is unfortunately swept up in his mother's greed (his mother kills him before committing suicide). (His name is sometimes translated as Edward de Villefort.) The fact that he was an innocent victim makes Dantès feel that he went too far in his revenge and explains why he treats Danglars more leniently.
* Benedetto — The illegitimate son of de Villefort and Hermine de Nargonne (now Baroness Hermine Danglars); born in Auteuil, raised by Bertuccio (later Monte Cristo's steward) and his sister-in-law, Assunta in the little village of Rogliano, at the extremity of Cape Corso. Murderer and thief. Is helped to escape from a prison galley and travels to Paris to become "Andrea Cavalcanti".
Morrel family
* Pierre Morrel — Edmond Dantès's patron and owner of the major Marseille shipping firm of Morrel & Son. He is a very honest and shrewd businessman and is also very fond of Edmond and eager to advance his interests. After Edmond is arrested, he tries his hardest to help Edmond and is hopeful of his release when Napoleon is restored to power, but because of his sympathies for the Bonapartist cause, he is forced to back down and abandon all hope after the Hundred Days and second Restoration of the monarchy. Between 1825 and 1830, his firm undergoes critical financial reverses due to the loss of all of his ships at sea, and he is at the point of bankruptcy and suicide when Monte Cristo (in the guise of an English clerk from the financial firm of Thompson and French) sets events in motion which not only save Pierre Morrel's reputation and honor but also his life. It is revealed that on his deathbed he realized his savior was Dantès.
* Maximilien Morrel (Maximilian in some English translations) — He is the son of Edmond's employer, Pierre Morrel, a captain in the Spahi regiment of the Army stationed in Algiers and an Officer of the Legion of Honor. After Edmond's escape and the Count of Monte Cristo's debut in Paris, Maximilien becomes a very good friend to the Count of Monte Cristo, yet still manages to unknowingly force the Count to change many of his plans, partly by falling in love with Valentine de Villefort.
* Julie Herbault — Daughter of Edmond's patron, Pierre Morrel, she marries Emmanuel Herbault.
* Emmanuel Herbault — Julie Herbault's husband; he had previously worked in Pierre Morrel's shipping firm and is the brother-in-law of Maximilien Morrel and son-in-law of Pierre Morrel.
Other important characters
* Gaspard Caderousse — A tailor and originally a neighbour and friend of Dantès, he witnesses while drunk the writing by Danglars of the denunciation of Dantès. After Dantès is arrested, he is too cowardly to come forward with the truth. Caderousse is somewhat different from the other members of the conspiracy in that it is what he does not do, rather than what he actually plans, that leads to Dantès' arrest. He moves out of town, becomes an innkeeper, falls on hard times, and supplements his income by fencing stolen goods from Bertuccio. After his escape from prison, Dantès (and the reader) first learn the fates of many of the characters from Caderousse. Unlike the other members of the conspiracy, Monte Cristo offers Caderousse more than one chance to redeem himself, but the latter's greed proves his undoing, and he becomes in turn a murderer, a thief and a blackmailer. He is eventually murdered by Benedetto.
* Louis Dantès — Edmond's father. After his son's imprisonment and believing Edmond dead, he eventually starves himself to death.
* Baron Franz d'Épinay — A friend of Albert de Morcerf, he is the first fiancé of Valentine de Villefort. Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort killed Franz's father General d'Épinay in a lawful duel after unsuccessfully trying to convince him to support plans to return Napoleon to power, but it was assumed by the public that the general was assassinated; Franz only learns the truth when Noirtier reveals it to stop Franz from marrying Valentine.
* Lucien Debray — Secretary to the Minister of the Interior. A friend of Albert de Morcerf, and a lover of Madame Danglars, to whom he funnels insider information regarding investments.
* Beauchamp — A leading journalist and friend of Albert de Morcerf (son of Fernand Mondego, the self-styled "Count de Morcerf"), he travels to Yannina to confirm the story about Fernand's background that leads to public embarrassment and Fernand's suicide.
* Raoul, Baron de Château-Renaud — A member of a very ancient and noble family and another friend of Albert de Morcerf. Maximilien Morrel saved Renaud's life in Algeria.
* Louise d'Armilly — Eugénie Danglars' music instructor, actually her closest friend, but not allowed to be seen in public with Eugénie because of the possibility of Louise some day becoming a professional artist in a theater setting. Eugénie and Louise run off together.
* Monsieur de Boville — originally an inspector of prisons (he actually meets Dantès in the Château d'If), he is later promoted to a senior rank of the Paris police detective force, where he does some investigating of the Count of Monte Cristo at Villefort's orders. By the close of the book, he has become a receiver-general of funds for the hospitals.
* Barrois — Old, trusted servant of Monsieur de Noirtier, dies accidentally after drinking poisoned lemonade from a decanter brought to Noirtier, and from which Noirtier had drunk a little. The poison was probably brucine. Having used brucine as medication for paralysis, Noirtier was not affected.
* Monsieur d'Avrigny — Family doctor treating the Villefort family, he alerts Villefort when he suspects poisoning. He suspects Valentine until she becomes a victim herself. Very discreet, he is willing to keep the secret as long as Villefort solves the problem, even secretly and informally, or even illegally (for instance, by locking up or poisoning the suspect). However, he threatens to reveal the secret if Villefort fails to take action.
* Major (also Marquis) Bartolomeo Cavalcanti — Old man paid by Monte Cristo to play the role of Prince Andrea Cavalcanti's father. He is not "a worthy patrician of Lucca" but a man who plays regularly at the gaming table of the baths of Lucca.
Publication
The Count of Monte Cristo was originally published in the Journal des Débats in eighteen parts. Publication ran from August 28, 1844 through to January 15, 1846. It was first published in Paris by Pétion in 18 volumes (1844-5). Complete versions of the novel in the original French were published throughout the nineteenth century.
The most common English translation was originally published in 1846 by Chapman and Hall. Most unabridged English editions of the novel, including the Modern Library and Oxford World's Classics editions, use this translation, although Penguin Classics published a new translation by Robin Buss in 1996. Buss' translation updated the language, is more accessible to modern readers, and restored content that was modified in the 1846 translation due to Victorian English social restrictions (for example, references to Eugénie's lesbian traits and behavior) to Dumas' actual publication. Other English translations of the unabridged work exist, but are rarely seen in print and most borrow from the 1846 anonymous translation.
Moby-Dick, also known as The Whale , is a novel first published in 1851 by American author Herman Melville. Moby-Dick is often referred to as a Great American Novel and is considered one of the treasures of world literature. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg. Ahab intends to take revenge.
In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and metaphor to explore numerous complex themes. Through the main character's journey, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of gods are all examined as Ishmael speculates upon his personal beliefs and his place in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative along with Shakespearean literary devices such as stage directions, extended soliloquies and asides.
Often classified as American Romanticism, Moby-Dick was first published by Richard Bentley in London on October 18, 1851 in an expurgated three-volume edition titled The Whale, and weeks later as a single volume, by New York City publisher Harper and Brothers as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale on November 14, 1851. Although the book initially received mixed reviews, Moby-Dick is now considered one of the greatest novels in the English language.
The story is based on the actual events around the whaleship Essex, which was attacked by a sperm whale while at sea and sank.
Background
Melville published Moby-Dick in 1851 during a productive time in American literature, which also produced novels such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Two actual events inspired Melville's tale. One was the sinking of the Nantucket ship Essex, in 1820 after it was rammed by a large sperm whale 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America. First mate Owen Chase, one of eight survivors, recorded the events in his 1821 Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. Already out-of-print, the book was rare even in 1851. Knowing that Melville was looking for it, his father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, managed to find a copy and buy it for him. When Melville received it, he fell to it almost immediately, heavily annotating it.
The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick, in the waters off the Chilean island of Mocha. Mocha Dick had dozens of harpoons from attacks by other whalers, and appeared to attack ships with premeditated ferocity. One of his battles with a whaler served as subject for an article by explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker, New York Monthly Magazine. Melville was familiar with the article, which described "an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength... [that] was white as wool". Significantly, Reynolds writes a first-person narration that serves as a frame for the story of a whaling captain he meets. The captain resembles Ahab and suggests a possible symbolism for whales in that, when his crew first encounters Mocha Dick and cowers from him, the captain rallies them thus: "'Mocha Dick or the d----l [devil],' said I, 'this boat never sheers off from any thing that wears the shape of a whale.'"
Mocha Dick had over 100 encounters with whalers between the 1810's and the 1830's. He was described as being giant covered in barnacles. Although he was the most famous, Mocha Dick was not the only white whale in the sea , nor the only whale to attack hunters, and the "Kathleen" in 1902.
Also inspirational for the novel were Melville's experiences as a sailor, in particular during 1841-1842 on the whaleship Acushnet. He had already drawn on his different sailing experiences in previous novels such as Mardi but he had never focused specifically on whaling. Melville had read Chase's account before sailing on the Acushnet in 1841; he was excited about sighting Captain Chase himself, who had returned to sea. During a mid-ocean "gam" (rendezvous) he met Chase's son William, who loaned him his father's book.
Moby-Dick contains large sections— most of them narrated by Ishmael— that seemingly have nothing to do with the plot but describe aspects of the whaling business. Melville believed that no book up to that time had portrayed the whaling industry in as fascinating or immediate a way as he had experienced it. Early Romantics also proposed that fiction was the exemplary way to describe and record history, so Melville wanted to craft something educational and definitive. Despite his own interest in the subject, Melville struggled with composition, writing to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. on May 1, 1850:
I am half way in the work ... It will be a strange sort of book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree; — and to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.
There are scholarly theories that purport a literary legend of two Moby-Dick tales, one being a whaling tale as was Melville's experience and affinity, and another deeper tale, inspired by his literary friendship with and respect for Nathaniel Hawthorne. These merged into the latter, the morality tale. Hawthorne and his family had moved to a small red farmhouse near Lenox, Massachusetts at the end of March 1850. He became friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Herman Melville beginning on August 5, 1850, when the authors met at a picnic hosted by a mutual friend. Melville had just read Hawthorne's short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse, and his unsigned review of the collection, titled "Hawthorne and His Mosses", was printed in the Literary World on August 17 and August 24. Melville, who was composing Moby-Dick at the time, wrote that these stories revealed a dark side to Hawthorne, "shrouded in blackness, ten times black". Melville dedicated Moby-Dick (1851) to Hawthorne: "In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne."
Themes
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Moby-Dick is a symbolic work, but also includes chapters on natural history. Major themes include obsession, religion, idealism versus pragmatism, revenge, racism, sanity, hierarchical relationships, and politics. All of the members of the crew↓ have biblical-sounding, improbable, or descriptive names, and the narrator deliberately avoids specifying the exact time of the events (such as the giant whale disappearing into the dark abyss of the ocean) and some other similar details. These together suggest that the narrator — and not just Melville — is deliberately casting his tale in an epic and allegorical mode.[citation needed]
The white whale has also been seen as a symbol for many things, including nature and those elements of life that are out of human control.Ch 42 The character Gabriel, "in his gibbering insanity, pronounc[ed] the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible." Melville mentions the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu, the first among ten incarnations when Vishnu appears as a giant fish on Earth and saves creation from the flood of destruction. Melville mentions this while discussing the spiritual and mystical aspects of the sailing profession and he calls Lord Vishnu as the first among whales and the God of whalers.
The Pequod's quest to hunt down Moby Dick itself is also widely viewed as allegorical. To Ahab, killing the whale becomes the ultimate goal in his life, and this observation can also be expanded allegorically so that the whale represents everyone's goals. Furthermore, his vengeance against the whale is analogous to man's struggle against fate. The only escape from Ahab's vision is seen through the Pequod's occasional encounters, called gams, with other ships. Readers could consider what exactly Ahab will do if he, in fact, succeeds in his quest: having accomplished his ultimate goal, what else is there left for him to do? Similarly, Melville may be implying that people in general need something to reach for in life, or that such a goal can destroy one if allowed to overtake all other concerns. Some such things are hinted at early on in the book, when the main character, Ishmael, is sharing a cold bed with his newfound friend, Queequeg:
... truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.
— Moby-Dick, Ch. 11
Ahab's pipe is widely looked upon as the riddance of happiness in Ahab's life. By throwing the pipe overboard, Ahab signifies that he no longer can enjoy simple pleasures in life; instead, he dedicates his entire life to the pursuit of his obsession, the killing of the white whale, Moby Dick. A number of biblical themes can also be found in the novel. The book contains multiple implicit and explicit allusions to the story of Jonah, in addition to the use of certain biblical names (see below).
Ishmael's musings also allude to themes common among the American Transcendentalists and parallel certain themes in European Romanticism and the philosophy of Hegel. In the poetry of Whitman and the prose writings of Emerson and Thoreau, a ship at sea is sometimes a metaphor for the soul.
Plot
"Call me Ishmael," Moby-Dick begins, in one of the most recognizable opening lines in English-language literature. The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold, gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage.
In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship’s captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him – a "grand, ungodly, godlike man," according to one of the owners, who has "been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals." The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day.
The ship’s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate is responsible for a whaling boat, and each whaling boat of the Pequod has its own pagan harpooneer assigned to it. Some time after sailing, Ahab finally appears on the quarter-deck one morning, an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over the narrator. (A white scar, reportedly from a thunderbolt, runs down his face and it is hinted that it continues the length of his body.) One of his legs is missing from the knee down and has been replaced by a prosthesis fashioned from a sperm whale's jawbone.
Soon gathering the crewmen together, with a rousing speech Ahab secures their support for his single, secret purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing Moby Dick, an old, very large sperm whale, with a snow-white hump and mottled skin, that crippled Ahab on his last whaling voyage. Only Starbuck shows any sign of resistance to the charismatic but monomaniacal captain. The first mate argues repeatedly that the ship’s purpose should be to hunt whales for their oil, with luck returning home profitably, safely, and quickly, but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular – and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring misgivings.
The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious harpooneer named Fedallah, an inscrutable figure with a sinister influence over Ahab. Later, while watching one night over a captured whale carcass, Fedallah darkly prophecies to Ahab hints regarding their twin deaths.
The novel describes numerous "gams," social meetings of two ships on the open sea. Crews normally visit each other during a gam, captains on one vessel and chief mates on the other. Mail may be exchanged and the men talk of whale sightings or other news. For Ahab, however, there is but one relevant question to ask of another ship: “Hast seen the White Whale?” After meeting several other whaling ships, which have their own peculiar stories, the Pequod enters the Pacific Ocean. Queequeg becomes deathly ill and requests that a coffin be built for him by the ship’s carpenter. Just as everyone has given up hope, Queequeg changes his mind, deciding to live after all, and recovers quickly. His coffin becomes his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's life buoy.
Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its boats is missing; the captain’s youngest son had been aboard. The Rachel's captain begs Ahab to aid in the search for the missing boat, but Ahab is resolute. The Pequod’s captain is very near the White Whale now and will not stop to help. Finally the Delight is met, even as its captain buries a sailor who had been killed by Moby Dick. Starbuck begs Ahab one final time to reconsider his thirst for vengeance, but to no avail.
The next day, the Pequod meets Moby Dick. For two days, the Pequod's crew pursues the whale, which wreaks widespread destruction, including the disappearance of the 'Parsee'. On the third day, Moby Dick rises up to reveal the Parsee tied to him by harpoon ropes, clearly dead. Even after the initial battle on the third day, as Moby Dick swims away from the Pequod, Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that "Moby-Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!"
Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequod itself, which begins to sink. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, the unfolding harpoon-line catches him around his neck and he is dragged into the depths of the sea by the diving Moby Dick. The boat is caught up in the whirlpool of the sinking ship, which takes almost all the crew to their deaths. Only Ishmael survives, clinging to Queequeg’s coffin-turned-life buoy for an entire day and night before the Rachel rescues him.
Characters
The crew-members of the Pequod are carefully drawn stylizations of human types and habits; critics have often described the crew as a "self-enclosed universe".
Ishmael
The name has come to symbolize orphans, exiles, and social outcasts — in the opening paragraph of Moby-Dick, Ishmael tells the reader that he has turned to the sea out of a feeling of alienation from human society. In the last line of the book, Ishmael also refers to himself symbolically as an orphan. Maintaining the Biblical connection and emphasising the representation of outcasts, Ishmael is also the name of the son Abraham has with the slave girl Hagar before Isaac is born. In Genesis 21:10 Abraham's wife, Sarah, has Hagar and Ishmael exiled into the desert. Ishmael has a rich literary background (he has previously been a schoolteacher), which he brings to bear on his shipmates and events that occur while at sea.
Elijah
The character Elijah (named for the Biblical prophet, Elijah, who is also referred to in the King James Bible as Elias), on learning that Ishmael and Queequeg have signed onto Ahab's ship, asks, "Anything down there about your souls?" When Ishmael reacts with surprise, Elijah continues:
"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No matter though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any — good luck to 'em; and they are all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon."
Later in the conversation, Elijah adds:
"Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and what's to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it wont be, after all. Any how, it's all fixed and arranged a'ready; and some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped ye."
Ahab
Ahab is the tyrannical captain of the Pequod who is driven by a monomaniacal desire to kill Moby Dick, the whale that maimed him on the previous whaling voyage. Despite the fact that he's a Quaker, he seeks revenge in defiance of his religion's well-known pacifism. Ahab's name comes directly from the Bible (see 1 Kings 16:28).
Little information is provided about Ahab's life prior to meeting Moby Dick, although it is known that he was orphaned at a young age. When discussing the purpose of his quest with Starbuck, it is revealed that he first began whaling at eighteen and has continued in the trade for forty years, having spent less than three on land. He also mentions his "girl-wife," whom he married late in life, and their young son, but does not give their names.
In Ishmael's first encounter with Ahab's name, he responds "When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood?" (Moby-Dick, Chapter 16).
Ahab ultimately dooms the crew of the Pequod (save for Ishmael) to death by his obsession with Moby Dick. During the final chase, Ahab hurls his final harpoon while yelling his now-famous revenge line:
... to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.
The harpoon becomes lodged in Moby Dick's flesh and Ahab, caught around the neck by a loop in his own harpoon's rope and unable to free himself, is dragged into the cold oblivion of the sea with the injured whale. The mechanics of Ahab's death are richly symbolic. He is literally killed by his own harpoon, and symbolically killed by his own obsession with revenge. The whale eventually destroys the whaleboats and crew, and sinks the Pequod.
Ahab has the qualities of a tragic hero — a great heart and a fatal flaw — and his deeply philosophical ruminations are expressed in language that is not only deliberately lofty and Shakespearian, but also so heavily iambic as often to read like Shakespeare's own pentameters.
Ahab's motivation for hunting Moby Dick is perhaps best summed up in the following passage:
The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; -- Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.
Moby Dick
He is a giant, albino Sperm whale and the main antagonist of the novel. He had bitten off Ahab's leg, and Ahab swore revenge. The cetacean also attacked the Rachel and killed the captain's son. He appears at the end of the novel and kills the entire crew with the exception of Ishmael. Unlike the other characters, the reader does not have access to Moby Dick's thoughts and motivations, but the whale is still an integral part of the novel. Moby Dick is sometimes considered to be a symbol of a number of things, among them God, nature, fate, the ocean, and the very universe itself.
Mates
The three mates of the Pequod are all from New England.
Starbuck
Starbuck, the young first mate of the Pequod, is a thoughtful and intellectual Quaker from Nantucket.
Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance... [H]is far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend[ed] to bend him ... from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
— Moby-Dick, Ch. 26
Little is said about Starbuck's early life, except that he is married with a son. Unlike Ahab's wife, who remains nameless, Starbuck gives his wife's name as Mary. Such is his desire to return to them, that when nearly reaching the last leg of their quest for Moby Dick, he considers arresting or even killing Ahab with a loaded musket, one of several which is kept by Ahab (in a previous chapter Ahab threatens Starbuck with one when Starbuck disobeys him, despite Starbuck's being in the right) and turning the ship back, straight for home.
Starbuck is alone among the crew in objecting to Ahab's quest, declaring it madness to want revenge on an animal, which lacks reason. Starbuck advocates continuing the more mundane pursuit of whales for their oil. But he lacks the support of the crew in his opposition to Ahab, and is unable to persuade them to turn back. Despite his misgivings, he feels himself bound by his obligations to obey the captain.
Starbuck was an important Quaker family name on Nantucket Island, and there were several actual whalemen of this period named "Starbuck," as evidenced by the name of Starbuck Island in the South Pacific whaling grounds. The multinational coffee chain Starbucks was named after Starbuck, not for any affinity for coffee but after the name Pequod was rejected by one of the co-founders.
Stubb
Stubb, the second mate of the Pequod, is from Cape Cod, and always seems to have a pipe in his mouth and a smile on his face. "Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests." (Moby-Dick, Ch. 27) Although he is not an educated man, Stubb is remarkably articulate, and during whale hunts keeps up an imaginative patter reminiscent of that of some characters in Shakespeare. Scholarly portrayals range from that of an optimistic simpleton to a paragon of lived philosophic wisdom.
Flask
Flask is the third mate of the Pequod. He is from Martha's Vineyard.
King Post is his nickname because he is a short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered.
— Moby-Dick, Ch. 27
Harpooneers
The harpooneers of the Pequod are all non-Christians from various parts of the world. Each serves on a mate's boat.
Queequeg
Main article: Queequeg
Queequeg hails from the fictional island of Kokovoko in the South Seas, inhabited by a cannibal tribe, and is the son of the chief of his tribe. Since leaving the island, he has become extremely skilled with the harpoon. He befriends Ishmael very early in the novel, when they meet in New Bedford, Massachusetts before leaving for Nantucket. He is described as existing in a state between civilized and savage. For example, Ishmael recounts with amusement how Queequeg feels it necessary to hide himself when pulling on his boots, noting that if he were a savage he wouldn't consider boots necessary, but if he were completely civilized he would realize there was no need to be modest when pulling on his boots.
Queequeg is the harpooneer on Starbuck's boat, where Ishmael is also an oarsman. Queequeg is best friends with Ishmael in the story. He is prominent early in the novel, but later fades in significance, as does Ishmael.
Tashtego
Tashtego is described as a Native American harpooneer. The personification of the hunter, he turns from hunting land animals to hunting whales. Tashtego is the harpooneer on Stubb's boat.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly promontory of Martha’s Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of Gay-Headers.
— Moby-Dick, Ch.27
Daggoo
Daggoo is a gigantic (6'5") African harpooneer from a coastal village with a noble bearing and grace. He is the harpooneer on Flask's boat.
Fedallah
Fedallah is the harpooneer on Ahab's boat. He is of Persian Zoroastrian ("Parsi") descent. Because of descriptions of him having lived in China, he might have been among the great wave of Parsi traders who made their way to Hong Kong and the Far East from India during the mid-19th century. At the time when the Pequod sets sail, Fedallah is hidden on board, and he emerges with Ahab's boat's crew later on, to the surprise of the crew. Fedallah is referred to in the text as Ahab's "Dark Shadow." Ishmael calls him a "fire worshipper" and the crew speculates that he is a devil in man's disguise. He is the source of a variety of prophecies regarding Ahab and his hunt for Moby Dick. Ishmael describes him thus, standing by Ahab's boat:
The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head.
— Moby-Dick, Ch.48
Other notable characters
Pip (nicknamed "Pippin," but "Pip" for short) is a black boy from Tolland County, Connecticut who is "the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew". Because he is physically slight, he is made a ship-keeper, (a sailor who stays in the Pequod while its whaleboats go out). Ishmael contrasts him with the "dull and torpid in his intellects" — and paler and much older — steward Dough-Boy, describing Pip as "over tender-hearted" but "at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe". Ishmael goes so far as to chastise the reader: "Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets."
The after-oarsman on Stubb's boat is injured, however, so Pip is temporarily reassigned to Stubb's whaleboat crew. The first time out, Pip jumps from the boat, causing Stubb and Tashtego to lose their already-harpooned whale. Tashtego and the rest of the crew are furious; Stubb chides him "officially" and "unofficially", even raising the specter of slavery: "a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama". The next time a whale is sighted, Pip again jumps overboard and is left stranded in the "awful lonesomeness" of the sea while Stubb's and the others' boats are dragged along by their harpooned whales. By the time he is rescued, he has become (at least to the other sailors) "an idiot", "mad". Ishmael, however, thought Pip had a mystical experience: "So man's insanity is heaven's sense." Pip and his experience are crucial because they serve as foreshadowing, in Ishmael's words "providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own." Pip's madness is full of poetry and eloquence; he is reminiscent of Tom in King Lear. Ahab later sympathizes with Pip and takes the young boy under his wing.
Dough-boy is the pale, nervous steward of the ship. The Cook (Fleece), Blacksmith (Perth) and Carpenter of the ship are each highlighted in at least one chapter near the end of the book. Fleece, a very old African-American with bad knees, is presented in the chapter "Stubb Kills a Whale" at some length in a dialogue where Stubb good-humoredly takes him to task over how to prepare a variety of dishes from the whale's carcass. Ahab calls on the Carpenter to fashion a new whalebone leg after the one he wears is damaged; later he has Perth forge a special harpoon that he carries into the final confrontation with Moby-Dick.
The crew as a whole is exceedingly international, having constituents from both the United States and the world. Chapter 40, "Midnight, Forecastle," highlights, in its stage-play manner (in Shakespearean style), the striking variety in the sailors' origins. A partial list of the speakers includes sailors from the Isle of Man, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, the Azores, Sicily and Malta, China, Denmark, Portugal, India, England, Spain and Ireland.
Critical reception
Melville's expectations
In a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne written within days of Moby-Dick's American publication, Melville made a number of revealing comments:
... for not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of them. Appreciation! Recognition! Is Jove appreciated? Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of his great allegory—the world? Then we pigmies must be content to have our paper allegories but ill comprehended. I say your appreciation is my glorious gratuity.
A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your understanding the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable sociabilities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling—no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content—that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.
You did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book—and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to despise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul.
Contemporary
Moby-Dick received decidedly mixed reviews from critics at the time it was published. Since the book first appeared in England, the American literary establishment took note of what the English critics said, especially when these critics were attached to the more prestigious journals. Although many critics praised it for its unique style, interesting characters and poetic language, others agreed with a critic for the highly regarded London Athenaeum, who described it as: "[A]n ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed."
One problem was that publisher Peter Bentley botched the English edition, most significantly in omitting the (somewhat perfunctory[citation needed]) epilogue. For this reason, many of the critics faulted the book on what little they could grasp of it, namely on purely formal grounds, e.g., how the tale could have been told if no one survived to tell it. The generally bad reviews from across the ocean made American readers skittish about picking up the tome. Still, a handful of American critics saw much more in it than most of their U.S. and English colleagues. Hawthorne said of the book: "What a book Melville has written! It gives me an idea of much greater power than his preceding ones". Perhaps the most perceptive review came from the pen of Evert Augustus Duyckinck, a friend of Melville who was able to introduce Melville to Hawthorne.
Underground
Within a year after Melville's death, Moby-Dick, along with Typee, Omoo and Mardi, was reprinted by Harper & Brothers, giving it a chance to be rediscovered. However, only New York's literary underground seemed to take much interest, just enough to keep Melville's name circulating for the next 25 years in the capital of American publishing. During this time, a few critics were willing to devote time, space, and a modicum of praise to Melville and his works, or at least those that could still be fairly easily obtained or remembered. Other works, especially the poetry, went largely forgotten.
Then came World War I and its consequences, particularly the shaking or destruction of faith in so many aspects of Western civilization, all of which caused people concerned with culture and its potential redemptive value to experiment with new aesthetic techniques. The stage was set for Melville to find his place.
The Melville Revival
With the burgeoning of Modernist aesthetics (see Modernism and American modernism) and the war that tore everything apart still so fresh in memory, Moby-Dick began to seem increasingly relevant. Many of Melville's techniques echo those of Modernism: kaleidoscopic, hybrid in genre and tone, monumentally ambitious in trying to unite so many disparate elements and loose ends. His new readers also found in him an almost too-profound exploration of violence, hunger for power, and quixotic goals. Although many critics of this time still considered Moby-Dick extremely difficult to come to grips with, they largely saw this lack of easy understanding as an asset rather than a liability.[citation needed]
In 1917, American author Carl Van Doren became the first of this period to proselytize about Melville's value.[citation needed]
In the 1920s, British literary critics began to take notice. In his idiosyncratic but landmark Studies in Classic American Literature, novelist, poet, and short story writer D. H. Lawrence directed Americans' attention to the great originality and value of many American authors, among them Melville. Perhaps most surprising is that Lawrence saw Moby-Dick as a work of the first order despite his using the original English edition.
In his 1921 study, The American Novel, Carl Van Doren returns to Melville with much more depth. Here he calls Moby-Dick a pinnacle of American Romanticism.
Post-revival
The next great wave of Moby-Dick appraisal came with the publication of F. O. Matthiessen's American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Published in 1941, the book proposed that Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville were the most prominent figures of a flowering of conflicted (and mostly pre-Civil War) literature important for its promulgation of democracy and the exploration of its possibilities, successes, and failures. Since Matthiessen's book came out shortly before the entry of the U.S. into World War II, the end of which found the U.S. in possession of the atomic bomb and thus a superpower, critic Nick Selby argues that
… Moby-Dick was now read as a text that reflected the power struggles of a world concerned to uphold democracy, and of a country seeking an identity for itself within that world.
On October 9, 2008, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a bill naming Moby-Dick Massachusetts' official “epic novel.”
In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and metaphor to explore numerous complex themes. Through the main character's journey, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of gods are all examined as Ishmael speculates upon his personal beliefs and his place in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative along with Shakespearean literary devices such as stage directions, extended soliloquies and asides.
Often classified as American Romanticism, Moby-Dick was first published by Richard Bentley in London on October 18, 1851 in an expurgated three-volume edition titled The Whale, and weeks later as a single volume, by New York City publisher Harper and Brothers as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale on November 14, 1851. Although the book initially received mixed reviews, Moby-Dick is now considered one of the greatest novels in the English language.
The story is based on the actual events around the whaleship Essex, which was attacked by a sperm whale while at sea and sank.
Background
Melville published Moby-Dick in 1851 during a productive time in American literature, which also produced novels such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Two actual events inspired Melville's tale. One was the sinking of the Nantucket ship Essex, in 1820 after it was rammed by a large sperm whale 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America. First mate Owen Chase, one of eight survivors, recorded the events in his 1821 Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. Already out-of-print, the book was rare even in 1851. Knowing that Melville was looking for it, his father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, managed to find a copy and buy it for him. When Melville received it, he fell to it almost immediately, heavily annotating it.
The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick, in the waters off the Chilean island of Mocha. Mocha Dick had dozens of harpoons from attacks by other whalers, and appeared to attack ships with premeditated ferocity. One of his battles with a whaler served as subject for an article by explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker, New York Monthly Magazine. Melville was familiar with the article, which described "an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength... [that] was white as wool". Significantly, Reynolds writes a first-person narration that serves as a frame for the story of a whaling captain he meets. The captain resembles Ahab and suggests a possible symbolism for whales in that, when his crew first encounters Mocha Dick and cowers from him, the captain rallies them thus: "'Mocha Dick or the d----l [devil],' said I, 'this boat never sheers off from any thing that wears the shape of a whale.'"
Mocha Dick had over 100 encounters with whalers between the 1810's and the 1830's. He was described as being giant covered in barnacles. Although he was the most famous, Mocha Dick was not the only white whale in the sea , nor the only whale to attack hunters, and the "Kathleen" in 1902.
Also inspirational for the novel were Melville's experiences as a sailor, in particular during 1841-1842 on the whaleship Acushnet. He had already drawn on his different sailing experiences in previous novels such as Mardi but he had never focused specifically on whaling. Melville had read Chase's account before sailing on the Acushnet in 1841; he was excited about sighting Captain Chase himself, who had returned to sea. During a mid-ocean "gam" (rendezvous) he met Chase's son William, who loaned him his father's book.
Moby-Dick contains large sections— most of them narrated by Ishmael— that seemingly have nothing to do with the plot but describe aspects of the whaling business. Melville believed that no book up to that time had portrayed the whaling industry in as fascinating or immediate a way as he had experienced it. Early Romantics also proposed that fiction was the exemplary way to describe and record history, so Melville wanted to craft something educational and definitive. Despite his own interest in the subject, Melville struggled with composition, writing to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. on May 1, 1850:
I am half way in the work ... It will be a strange sort of book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree; — and to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.
There are scholarly theories that purport a literary legend of two Moby-Dick tales, one being a whaling tale as was Melville's experience and affinity, and another deeper tale, inspired by his literary friendship with and respect for Nathaniel Hawthorne. These merged into the latter, the morality tale. Hawthorne and his family had moved to a small red farmhouse near Lenox, Massachusetts at the end of March 1850. He became friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Herman Melville beginning on August 5, 1850, when the authors met at a picnic hosted by a mutual friend. Melville had just read Hawthorne's short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse, and his unsigned review of the collection, titled "Hawthorne and His Mosses", was printed in the Literary World on August 17 and August 24. Melville, who was composing Moby-Dick at the time, wrote that these stories revealed a dark side to Hawthorne, "shrouded in blackness, ten times black". Melville dedicated Moby-Dick (1851) to Hawthorne: "In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne."
Themes
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Moby-Dick is a symbolic work, but also includes chapters on natural history. Major themes include obsession, religion, idealism versus pragmatism, revenge, racism, sanity, hierarchical relationships, and politics. All of the members of the crew↓ have biblical-sounding, improbable, or descriptive names, and the narrator deliberately avoids specifying the exact time of the events (such as the giant whale disappearing into the dark abyss of the ocean) and some other similar details. These together suggest that the narrator — and not just Melville — is deliberately casting his tale in an epic and allegorical mode.[citation needed]
The white whale has also been seen as a symbol for many things, including nature and those elements of life that are out of human control.Ch 42 The character Gabriel, "in his gibbering insanity, pronounc[ed] the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible." Melville mentions the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu, the first among ten incarnations when Vishnu appears as a giant fish on Earth and saves creation from the flood of destruction. Melville mentions this while discussing the spiritual and mystical aspects of the sailing profession and he calls Lord Vishnu as the first among whales and the God of whalers.
The Pequod's quest to hunt down Moby Dick itself is also widely viewed as allegorical. To Ahab, killing the whale becomes the ultimate goal in his life, and this observation can also be expanded allegorically so that the whale represents everyone's goals. Furthermore, his vengeance against the whale is analogous to man's struggle against fate. The only escape from Ahab's vision is seen through the Pequod's occasional encounters, called gams, with other ships. Readers could consider what exactly Ahab will do if he, in fact, succeeds in his quest: having accomplished his ultimate goal, what else is there left for him to do? Similarly, Melville may be implying that people in general need something to reach for in life, or that such a goal can destroy one if allowed to overtake all other concerns. Some such things are hinted at early on in the book, when the main character, Ishmael, is sharing a cold bed with his newfound friend, Queequeg:
... truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.
— Moby-Dick, Ch. 11
Ahab's pipe is widely looked upon as the riddance of happiness in Ahab's life. By throwing the pipe overboard, Ahab signifies that he no longer can enjoy simple pleasures in life; instead, he dedicates his entire life to the pursuit of his obsession, the killing of the white whale, Moby Dick. A number of biblical themes can also be found in the novel. The book contains multiple implicit and explicit allusions to the story of Jonah, in addition to the use of certain biblical names (see below).
Ishmael's musings also allude to themes common among the American Transcendentalists and parallel certain themes in European Romanticism and the philosophy of Hegel. In the poetry of Whitman and the prose writings of Emerson and Thoreau, a ship at sea is sometimes a metaphor for the soul.
Plot
"Call me Ishmael," Moby-Dick begins, in one of the most recognizable opening lines in English-language literature. The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold, gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage.
In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship’s captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him – a "grand, ungodly, godlike man," according to one of the owners, who has "been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals." The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day.
The ship’s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate is responsible for a whaling boat, and each whaling boat of the Pequod has its own pagan harpooneer assigned to it. Some time after sailing, Ahab finally appears on the quarter-deck one morning, an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over the narrator. (A white scar, reportedly from a thunderbolt, runs down his face and it is hinted that it continues the length of his body.) One of his legs is missing from the knee down and has been replaced by a prosthesis fashioned from a sperm whale's jawbone.
Soon gathering the crewmen together, with a rousing speech Ahab secures their support for his single, secret purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing Moby Dick, an old, very large sperm whale, with a snow-white hump and mottled skin, that crippled Ahab on his last whaling voyage. Only Starbuck shows any sign of resistance to the charismatic but monomaniacal captain. The first mate argues repeatedly that the ship’s purpose should be to hunt whales for their oil, with luck returning home profitably, safely, and quickly, but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular – and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring misgivings.
The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious harpooneer named Fedallah, an inscrutable figure with a sinister influence over Ahab. Later, while watching one night over a captured whale carcass, Fedallah darkly prophecies to Ahab hints regarding their twin deaths.
The novel describes numerous "gams," social meetings of two ships on the open sea. Crews normally visit each other during a gam, captains on one vessel and chief mates on the other. Mail may be exchanged and the men talk of whale sightings or other news. For Ahab, however, there is but one relevant question to ask of another ship: “Hast seen the White Whale?” After meeting several other whaling ships, which have their own peculiar stories, the Pequod enters the Pacific Ocean. Queequeg becomes deathly ill and requests that a coffin be built for him by the ship’s carpenter. Just as everyone has given up hope, Queequeg changes his mind, deciding to live after all, and recovers quickly. His coffin becomes his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's life buoy.
Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its boats is missing; the captain’s youngest son had been aboard. The Rachel's captain begs Ahab to aid in the search for the missing boat, but Ahab is resolute. The Pequod’s captain is very near the White Whale now and will not stop to help. Finally the Delight is met, even as its captain buries a sailor who had been killed by Moby Dick. Starbuck begs Ahab one final time to reconsider his thirst for vengeance, but to no avail.
The next day, the Pequod meets Moby Dick. For two days, the Pequod's crew pursues the whale, which wreaks widespread destruction, including the disappearance of the 'Parsee'. On the third day, Moby Dick rises up to reveal the Parsee tied to him by harpoon ropes, clearly dead. Even after the initial battle on the third day, as Moby Dick swims away from the Pequod, Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that "Moby-Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!"
Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequod itself, which begins to sink. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, the unfolding harpoon-line catches him around his neck and he is dragged into the depths of the sea by the diving Moby Dick. The boat is caught up in the whirlpool of the sinking ship, which takes almost all the crew to their deaths. Only Ishmael survives, clinging to Queequeg’s coffin-turned-life buoy for an entire day and night before the Rachel rescues him.
Characters
The crew-members of the Pequod are carefully drawn stylizations of human types and habits; critics have often described the crew as a "self-enclosed universe".
Ishmael
The name has come to symbolize orphans, exiles, and social outcasts — in the opening paragraph of Moby-Dick, Ishmael tells the reader that he has turned to the sea out of a feeling of alienation from human society. In the last line of the book, Ishmael also refers to himself symbolically as an orphan. Maintaining the Biblical connection and emphasising the representation of outcasts, Ishmael is also the name of the son Abraham has with the slave girl Hagar before Isaac is born. In Genesis 21:10 Abraham's wife, Sarah, has Hagar and Ishmael exiled into the desert. Ishmael has a rich literary background (he has previously been a schoolteacher), which he brings to bear on his shipmates and events that occur while at sea.
Elijah
The character Elijah (named for the Biblical prophet, Elijah, who is also referred to in the King James Bible as Elias), on learning that Ishmael and Queequeg have signed onto Ahab's ship, asks, "Anything down there about your souls?" When Ishmael reacts with surprise, Elijah continues:
"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No matter though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any — good luck to 'em; and they are all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon."
Later in the conversation, Elijah adds:
"Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and what's to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it wont be, after all. Any how, it's all fixed and arranged a'ready; and some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped ye."
Ahab
Ahab is the tyrannical captain of the Pequod who is driven by a monomaniacal desire to kill Moby Dick, the whale that maimed him on the previous whaling voyage. Despite the fact that he's a Quaker, he seeks revenge in defiance of his religion's well-known pacifism. Ahab's name comes directly from the Bible (see 1 Kings 16:28).
Little information is provided about Ahab's life prior to meeting Moby Dick, although it is known that he was orphaned at a young age. When discussing the purpose of his quest with Starbuck, it is revealed that he first began whaling at eighteen and has continued in the trade for forty years, having spent less than three on land. He also mentions his "girl-wife," whom he married late in life, and their young son, but does not give their names.
In Ishmael's first encounter with Ahab's name, he responds "When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood?" (Moby-Dick, Chapter 16).
Ahab ultimately dooms the crew of the Pequod (save for Ishmael) to death by his obsession with Moby Dick. During the final chase, Ahab hurls his final harpoon while yelling his now-famous revenge line:
... to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.
The harpoon becomes lodged in Moby Dick's flesh and Ahab, caught around the neck by a loop in his own harpoon's rope and unable to free himself, is dragged into the cold oblivion of the sea with the injured whale. The mechanics of Ahab's death are richly symbolic. He is literally killed by his own harpoon, and symbolically killed by his own obsession with revenge. The whale eventually destroys the whaleboats and crew, and sinks the Pequod.
Ahab has the qualities of a tragic hero — a great heart and a fatal flaw — and his deeply philosophical ruminations are expressed in language that is not only deliberately lofty and Shakespearian, but also so heavily iambic as often to read like Shakespeare's own pentameters.
Ahab's motivation for hunting Moby Dick is perhaps best summed up in the following passage:
The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; -- Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.
Moby Dick
He is a giant, albino Sperm whale and the main antagonist of the novel. He had bitten off Ahab's leg, and Ahab swore revenge. The cetacean also attacked the Rachel and killed the captain's son. He appears at the end of the novel and kills the entire crew with the exception of Ishmael. Unlike the other characters, the reader does not have access to Moby Dick's thoughts and motivations, but the whale is still an integral part of the novel. Moby Dick is sometimes considered to be a symbol of a number of things, among them God, nature, fate, the ocean, and the very universe itself.
Mates
The three mates of the Pequod are all from New England.
Starbuck
Starbuck, the young first mate of the Pequod, is a thoughtful and intellectual Quaker from Nantucket.
Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance... [H]is far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend[ed] to bend him ... from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
— Moby-Dick, Ch. 26
Little is said about Starbuck's early life, except that he is married with a son. Unlike Ahab's wife, who remains nameless, Starbuck gives his wife's name as Mary. Such is his desire to return to them, that when nearly reaching the last leg of their quest for Moby Dick, he considers arresting or even killing Ahab with a loaded musket, one of several which is kept by Ahab (in a previous chapter Ahab threatens Starbuck with one when Starbuck disobeys him, despite Starbuck's being in the right) and turning the ship back, straight for home.
Starbuck is alone among the crew in objecting to Ahab's quest, declaring it madness to want revenge on an animal, which lacks reason. Starbuck advocates continuing the more mundane pursuit of whales for their oil. But he lacks the support of the crew in his opposition to Ahab, and is unable to persuade them to turn back. Despite his misgivings, he feels himself bound by his obligations to obey the captain.
Starbuck was an important Quaker family name on Nantucket Island, and there were several actual whalemen of this period named "Starbuck," as evidenced by the name of Starbuck Island in the South Pacific whaling grounds. The multinational coffee chain Starbucks was named after Starbuck, not for any affinity for coffee but after the name Pequod was rejected by one of the co-founders.
Stubb
Stubb, the second mate of the Pequod, is from Cape Cod, and always seems to have a pipe in his mouth and a smile on his face. "Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests." (Moby-Dick, Ch. 27) Although he is not an educated man, Stubb is remarkably articulate, and during whale hunts keeps up an imaginative patter reminiscent of that of some characters in Shakespeare. Scholarly portrayals range from that of an optimistic simpleton to a paragon of lived philosophic wisdom.
Flask
Flask is the third mate of the Pequod. He is from Martha's Vineyard.
King Post is his nickname because he is a short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered.
— Moby-Dick, Ch. 27
Harpooneers
The harpooneers of the Pequod are all non-Christians from various parts of the world. Each serves on a mate's boat.
Queequeg
Main article: Queequeg
Queequeg hails from the fictional island of Kokovoko in the South Seas, inhabited by a cannibal tribe, and is the son of the chief of his tribe. Since leaving the island, he has become extremely skilled with the harpoon. He befriends Ishmael very early in the novel, when they meet in New Bedford, Massachusetts before leaving for Nantucket. He is described as existing in a state between civilized and savage. For example, Ishmael recounts with amusement how Queequeg feels it necessary to hide himself when pulling on his boots, noting that if he were a savage he wouldn't consider boots necessary, but if he were completely civilized he would realize there was no need to be modest when pulling on his boots.
Queequeg is the harpooneer on Starbuck's boat, where Ishmael is also an oarsman. Queequeg is best friends with Ishmael in the story. He is prominent early in the novel, but later fades in significance, as does Ishmael.
Tashtego
Tashtego is described as a Native American harpooneer. The personification of the hunter, he turns from hunting land animals to hunting whales. Tashtego is the harpooneer on Stubb's boat.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly promontory of Martha’s Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of Gay-Headers.
— Moby-Dick, Ch.27
Daggoo
Daggoo is a gigantic (6'5") African harpooneer from a coastal village with a noble bearing and grace. He is the harpooneer on Flask's boat.
Fedallah
Fedallah is the harpooneer on Ahab's boat. He is of Persian Zoroastrian ("Parsi") descent. Because of descriptions of him having lived in China, he might have been among the great wave of Parsi traders who made their way to Hong Kong and the Far East from India during the mid-19th century. At the time when the Pequod sets sail, Fedallah is hidden on board, and he emerges with Ahab's boat's crew later on, to the surprise of the crew. Fedallah is referred to in the text as Ahab's "Dark Shadow." Ishmael calls him a "fire worshipper" and the crew speculates that he is a devil in man's disguise. He is the source of a variety of prophecies regarding Ahab and his hunt for Moby Dick. Ishmael describes him thus, standing by Ahab's boat:
The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head.
— Moby-Dick, Ch.48
Other notable characters
Pip (nicknamed "Pippin," but "Pip" for short) is a black boy from Tolland County, Connecticut who is "the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew". Because he is physically slight, he is made a ship-keeper, (a sailor who stays in the Pequod while its whaleboats go out). Ishmael contrasts him with the "dull and torpid in his intellects" — and paler and much older — steward Dough-Boy, describing Pip as "over tender-hearted" but "at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe". Ishmael goes so far as to chastise the reader: "Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets."
The after-oarsman on Stubb's boat is injured, however, so Pip is temporarily reassigned to Stubb's whaleboat crew. The first time out, Pip jumps from the boat, causing Stubb and Tashtego to lose their already-harpooned whale. Tashtego and the rest of the crew are furious; Stubb chides him "officially" and "unofficially", even raising the specter of slavery: "a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama". The next time a whale is sighted, Pip again jumps overboard and is left stranded in the "awful lonesomeness" of the sea while Stubb's and the others' boats are dragged along by their harpooned whales. By the time he is rescued, he has become (at least to the other sailors) "an idiot", "mad". Ishmael, however, thought Pip had a mystical experience: "So man's insanity is heaven's sense." Pip and his experience are crucial because they serve as foreshadowing, in Ishmael's words "providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own." Pip's madness is full of poetry and eloquence; he is reminiscent of Tom in King Lear. Ahab later sympathizes with Pip and takes the young boy under his wing.
Dough-boy is the pale, nervous steward of the ship. The Cook (Fleece), Blacksmith (Perth) and Carpenter of the ship are each highlighted in at least one chapter near the end of the book. Fleece, a very old African-American with bad knees, is presented in the chapter "Stubb Kills a Whale" at some length in a dialogue where Stubb good-humoredly takes him to task over how to prepare a variety of dishes from the whale's carcass. Ahab calls on the Carpenter to fashion a new whalebone leg after the one he wears is damaged; later he has Perth forge a special harpoon that he carries into the final confrontation with Moby-Dick.
The crew as a whole is exceedingly international, having constituents from both the United States and the world. Chapter 40, "Midnight, Forecastle," highlights, in its stage-play manner (in Shakespearean style), the striking variety in the sailors' origins. A partial list of the speakers includes sailors from the Isle of Man, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, the Azores, Sicily and Malta, China, Denmark, Portugal, India, England, Spain and Ireland.
Critical reception
Melville's expectations
In a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne written within days of Moby-Dick's American publication, Melville made a number of revealing comments:
... for not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of them. Appreciation! Recognition! Is Jove appreciated? Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of his great allegory—the world? Then we pigmies must be content to have our paper allegories but ill comprehended. I say your appreciation is my glorious gratuity.
A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your understanding the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable sociabilities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling—no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content—that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.
You did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book—and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to despise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul.
Contemporary
Moby-Dick received decidedly mixed reviews from critics at the time it was published. Since the book first appeared in England, the American literary establishment took note of what the English critics said, especially when these critics were attached to the more prestigious journals. Although many critics praised it for its unique style, interesting characters and poetic language, others agreed with a critic for the highly regarded London Athenaeum, who described it as: "[A]n ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed."
One problem was that publisher Peter Bentley botched the English edition, most significantly in omitting the (somewhat perfunctory[citation needed]) epilogue. For this reason, many of the critics faulted the book on what little they could grasp of it, namely on purely formal grounds, e.g., how the tale could have been told if no one survived to tell it. The generally bad reviews from across the ocean made American readers skittish about picking up the tome. Still, a handful of American critics saw much more in it than most of their U.S. and English colleagues. Hawthorne said of the book: "What a book Melville has written! It gives me an idea of much greater power than his preceding ones". Perhaps the most perceptive review came from the pen of Evert Augustus Duyckinck, a friend of Melville who was able to introduce Melville to Hawthorne.
Underground
Within a year after Melville's death, Moby-Dick, along with Typee, Omoo and Mardi, was reprinted by Harper & Brothers, giving it a chance to be rediscovered. However, only New York's literary underground seemed to take much interest, just enough to keep Melville's name circulating for the next 25 years in the capital of American publishing. During this time, a few critics were willing to devote time, space, and a modicum of praise to Melville and his works, or at least those that could still be fairly easily obtained or remembered. Other works, especially the poetry, went largely forgotten.
Then came World War I and its consequences, particularly the shaking or destruction of faith in so many aspects of Western civilization, all of which caused people concerned with culture and its potential redemptive value to experiment with new aesthetic techniques. The stage was set for Melville to find his place.
The Melville Revival
With the burgeoning of Modernist aesthetics (see Modernism and American modernism) and the war that tore everything apart still so fresh in memory, Moby-Dick began to seem increasingly relevant. Many of Melville's techniques echo those of Modernism: kaleidoscopic, hybrid in genre and tone, monumentally ambitious in trying to unite so many disparate elements and loose ends. His new readers also found in him an almost too-profound exploration of violence, hunger for power, and quixotic goals. Although many critics of this time still considered Moby-Dick extremely difficult to come to grips with, they largely saw this lack of easy understanding as an asset rather than a liability.[citation needed]
In 1917, American author Carl Van Doren became the first of this period to proselytize about Melville's value.[citation needed]
In the 1920s, British literary critics began to take notice. In his idiosyncratic but landmark Studies in Classic American Literature, novelist, poet, and short story writer D. H. Lawrence directed Americans' attention to the great originality and value of many American authors, among them Melville. Perhaps most surprising is that Lawrence saw Moby-Dick as a work of the first order despite his using the original English edition.
In his 1921 study, The American Novel, Carl Van Doren returns to Melville with much more depth. Here he calls Moby-Dick a pinnacle of American Romanticism.
Post-revival
The next great wave of Moby-Dick appraisal came with the publication of F. O. Matthiessen's American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Published in 1941, the book proposed that Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville were the most prominent figures of a flowering of conflicted (and mostly pre-Civil War) literature important for its promulgation of democracy and the exploration of its possibilities, successes, and failures. Since Matthiessen's book came out shortly before the entry of the U.S. into World War II, the end of which found the U.S. in possession of the atomic bomb and thus a superpower, critic Nick Selby argues that
… Moby-Dick was now read as a text that reflected the power struggles of a world concerned to uphold democracy, and of a country seeking an identity for itself within that world.
On October 9, 2008, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a bill naming Moby-Dick Massachusetts' official “epic novel.”
世界顶级登山高手奥寺(玉木宏)终于要挑战最难关高峰k2了。一同前往的登山队员兼好友的是北沢（山本太郎）。他们接受了来自大型运动厂商ヤシロ的登山用具的全面赞助，两人登山组将代表日本挑战攀登k2的
magic line
在攀登k2的途中，北沢帮妹妹ゆかり(吹石一恵)向奥寺表达了爱慕之情，与此同时，北泽也质问了奥寺对ヤシロ的八代社长（石坂浩二）的妻子美那子（鹤田真由）的感觉。就在这攀登k2的途中，两人推心置腹。而留在日本的八代和美那子对 k2也充满了遐想。因为在出发前，奥寺曾对八代挑明：“如果我能活
着从k2回来，就把美那子交给我”
在攀登顶峰的第四天，奥寺两人终于到达了海拔8000米的magic line的“z”型攀登区。由于高空氧气稀薄，二人的体力已接近透支，第二天，当两人到达号称“三日月のガリー”的险峻岩沟时，一堵高70米的冰壁浩然耸立在他们面前。由于温度过低，无法固定帐篷，无线对讲机也无法使用，正在此时，又突发雪崩北沢因此脚部骨折。由于那里是雪崩多发地，奥寺马上用恢复功能的无线对讲机联络本部，报告中止此次探险。攀登k2告终失败，接下来的问题是如何生还。奥寺选择了避开雪崩多发地，与北泽一同攀登冰壁，再由普通的山路下山的逃生措施。奥寺用尽最后的力气，再冰壁上垂下绳索，并让北泽先攀登，自己紧随其后，不幸的是北泽坠落冰壁。
北泽的死隐藏了很大的谜团。回国以后，智之（武田真治）作为ヤシロ公司的法人，对外解释说北泽的死是由于攀登的疏忽。然而奥寺却极力否定这个表决，他认为事故是由ヤシロ公司提供的登山工具有质量隐患所导致的，这一发言，引起了很大反响。八代社长坚持说是有北泽的操作失误导致事故，以违反信用为由起诉了奥寺。奥寺则与北沢的妹妹ゆかり以及母亲秋子(吉行和子)一起携手展开这场法庭上的斗。。。。。。
magic line
在攀登k2的途中，北沢帮妹妹ゆかり(吹石一恵)向奥寺表达了爱慕之情，与此同时，北泽也质问了奥寺对ヤシロ的八代社长（石坂浩二）的妻子美那子（鹤田真由）的感觉。就在这攀登k2的途中，两人推心置腹。而留在日本的八代和美那子对 k2也充满了遐想。因为在出发前，奥寺曾对八代挑明：“如果我能活
着从k2回来，就把美那子交给我”
在攀登顶峰的第四天，奥寺两人终于到达了海拔8000米的magic line的“z”型攀登区。由于高空氧气稀薄，二人的体力已接近透支，第二天，当两人到达号称“三日月のガリー”的险峻岩沟时，一堵高70米的冰壁浩然耸立在他们面前。由于温度过低，无法固定帐篷，无线对讲机也无法使用，正在此时，又突发雪崩北沢因此脚部骨折。由于那里是雪崩多发地，奥寺马上用恢复功能的无线对讲机联络本部，报告中止此次探险。攀登k2告终失败，接下来的问题是如何生还。奥寺选择了避开雪崩多发地，与北泽一同攀登冰壁，再由普通的山路下山的逃生措施。奥寺用尽最后的力气，再冰壁上垂下绳索，并让北泽先攀登，自己紧随其后，不幸的是北泽坠落冰壁。
北泽的死隐藏了很大的谜团。回国以后，智之（武田真治）作为ヤシロ公司的法人，对外解释说北泽的死是由于攀登的疏忽。然而奥寺却极力否定这个表决，他认为事故是由ヤシロ公司提供的登山工具有质量隐患所导致的，这一发言，引起了很大反响。八代社长坚持说是有北泽的操作失误导致事故，以违反信用为由起诉了奥寺。奥寺则与北沢的妹妹ゆかり以及母亲秋子(吉行和子)一起携手展开这场法庭上的斗。。。。。。
Two Years' Vacation (French: Deux ans de vacances) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne, published in 1888. The story tells of the fortunes of a group of schoolboys stranded on a deserted island in the South Pacific, and of their struggles to overcome adversity. In his preface to the book, Verne explains that his goals were to create a Robinson Crusoe-like environment for children, and to show the world what the intelligence and bravery of a child was capable of when put to the test.
Publication
As with most of Verne's works, it was serialised (in twenty-four parts between January and December 1888) in the "Extraordinary Journeys" section of the French Magasin d’Éducation et de Récréation by Parisian publisher Hetzel. It was also published in book form in two volumes in June and early November of that year. An illustrated double volume with a colour map and a preface by Verne was released in late November.
Translations and adaptations
An English translation of the book was serialised in 36 installments in the Boy's Own Paper between 1888 and 1889.
In 1889 a two-volume English-language book titled A Two Year's Vacation was published by Munro in the United States. Later the same year, a single-volume abridged edition in the United Kingdom was released by Sampson Low under the title of Adrift in the Pacific.
In 1890, from February 22 through March 14, the Boston Daily Globe newspaper serialized Adrift in the Pacific; the Strange Adventures of a Schoolboy Crew.
In 1965 the I. O. Evens version of the Sampson Low translation was published in England (ARCO) and the U.S. (Associated Publishers) in two volumes: Adrift in the Pacific and Second Year Ashore.
In 1967 a new modified and abridged translation by Olga Marx with illustrations by Victor Ambrus titled A Long Vacation was published by Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom and Holt, Rinehart & Winston in the United States.
In 1967 Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman made a loose adaptation under the title The Stolen Airship / Ukradená vzducholod.
In 1987 a made-for-TV animation was produced by the Japanese studio Nippon Animation under the title of The Story of Fifteen Boys (Japanese: 十五少年漂流記).
Plot summary
The story starts with a group of schoolboys aged between eight and thirteen on board a schooner moored at Auckland, New Zealand, and preparing to set off on a six-week vacation. With the exception of the oldest boy Gordon, an American, and Briant and Jacques, two French brothers, all the boys are British.
While the schooner's crew are ashore, the moorings are cast off under unknown circumstances and the ship drifts to sea, where it is caught by a storm. Twenty-two days later, the boys find themselves cast upon the shore of an uncharted island, which they name "Chairman Island." They remain there for the next two years until a passing ship lands. The ship has been taken over by mutineers, intent on trafficking weapons, alcohol and drugs. With the aid of the two surviving members of the original crew, the boys are able to defeat the criminals and make their escape.
The struggles for survival and dominance amongst the boys were to be echoed in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, written some 66 years later.
Publication
As with most of Verne's works, it was serialised (in twenty-four parts between January and December 1888) in the "Extraordinary Journeys" section of the French Magasin d’Éducation et de Récréation by Parisian publisher Hetzel. It was also published in book form in two volumes in June and early November of that year. An illustrated double volume with a colour map and a preface by Verne was released in late November.
Translations and adaptations
An English translation of the book was serialised in 36 installments in the Boy's Own Paper between 1888 and 1889.
In 1889 a two-volume English-language book titled A Two Year's Vacation was published by Munro in the United States. Later the same year, a single-volume abridged edition in the United Kingdom was released by Sampson Low under the title of Adrift in the Pacific.
In 1890, from February 22 through March 14, the Boston Daily Globe newspaper serialized Adrift in the Pacific; the Strange Adventures of a Schoolboy Crew.
In 1965 the I. O. Evens version of the Sampson Low translation was published in England (ARCO) and the U.S. (Associated Publishers) in two volumes: Adrift in the Pacific and Second Year Ashore.
In 1967 a new modified and abridged translation by Olga Marx with illustrations by Victor Ambrus titled A Long Vacation was published by Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom and Holt, Rinehart & Winston in the United States.
In 1967 Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman made a loose adaptation under the title The Stolen Airship / Ukradená vzducholod.
In 1987 a made-for-TV animation was produced by the Japanese studio Nippon Animation under the title of The Story of Fifteen Boys (Japanese: 十五少年漂流記).
Plot summary
The story starts with a group of schoolboys aged between eight and thirteen on board a schooner moored at Auckland, New Zealand, and preparing to set off on a six-week vacation. With the exception of the oldest boy Gordon, an American, and Briant and Jacques, two French brothers, all the boys are British.
While the schooner's crew are ashore, the moorings are cast off under unknown circumstances and the ship drifts to sea, where it is caught by a storm. Twenty-two days later, the boys find themselves cast upon the shore of an uncharted island, which they name "Chairman Island." They remain there for the next two years until a passing ship lands. The ship has been taken over by mutineers, intent on trafficking weapons, alcohol and drugs. With the aid of the two surviving members of the original crew, the boys are able to defeat the criminals and make their escape.
The struggles for survival and dominance amongst the boys were to be echoed in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, written some 66 years later.
Themes
Themes explored in the novel include:
* The painful learning of adult life - the hero, Dick Sand, must assume command of a ship after the disappearance of its captain.
* The discovery of entomology
* Condemnation of slavery
* Revenge
Plot
Dick Sand is a fifteen year old boy serving on the schooner "Pilgrim" as a sailor. The crew are whale hunters that voyage every year down to New Zealand. After an unsuccessful season of hunting, as they plan to return the wife of the owner of the hunting firm, Mrs Weldon, her five year old son Jack Weldon and her cousin, Bénédict, an entomologist ask for a return passege to San Francisco. Several days into the journey they save five shipwrecked passengers from another ship and a dog who was with them at the time (Tom, Actéon, Austin, Bat, Nan and Dingo (the dog)). Towards the end of their passage, they notice a whale and the crew, hoping for some profit after a bad season, decide to hunt it. Captain Hull reluctantly leaves Dick responsible for the ship. But the hunt goes awry and all the crew members are killed. Now Dick is left in charge of the ship with no experienced sailors to help him. He tries to teach the five survivors of the shipwreck and tries to reach the coast of South America, but Negoro, the ship's cook manages to trick them, breaking one of their compasses and their speed measuring device and eventually, after making sure the rest were lost, leads them to equatorial Africa.
List of characters
These names are as given in the original French version:
* Dick Sand
* Actéon
* Alvez
* Austin
* Bat
* Cousin Bénédict
* Coïmbra
* Dingo
* Halima
* Harris
* Big D
* Hercule, a recurring Verne character, here given the pseudonym Mgannga
* Howik
* Captain Hull
* Ibn Hamis
* Moina
* Moini Loungga
* Munito
* Nan
* Negoro
* Tipo-Tipo
* Tom
* Samuel Vernon
* Jack Weldon
* James-W. Weldon
* Mrs. Weldon
Themes explored in the novel include:
* The painful learning of adult life - the hero, Dick Sand, must assume command of a ship after the disappearance of its captain.
* The discovery of entomology
* Condemnation of slavery
* Revenge
Plot
Dick Sand is a fifteen year old boy serving on the schooner "Pilgrim" as a sailor. The crew are whale hunters that voyage every year down to New Zealand. After an unsuccessful season of hunting, as they plan to return the wife of the owner of the hunting firm, Mrs Weldon, her five year old son Jack Weldon and her cousin, Bénédict, an entomologist ask for a return passege to San Francisco. Several days into the journey they save five shipwrecked passengers from another ship and a dog who was with them at the time (Tom, Actéon, Austin, Bat, Nan and Dingo (the dog)). Towards the end of their passage, they notice a whale and the crew, hoping for some profit after a bad season, decide to hunt it. Captain Hull reluctantly leaves Dick responsible for the ship. But the hunt goes awry and all the crew members are killed. Now Dick is left in charge of the ship with no experienced sailors to help him. He tries to teach the five survivors of the shipwreck and tries to reach the coast of South America, but Negoro, the ship's cook manages to trick them, breaking one of their compasses and their speed measuring device and eventually, after making sure the rest were lost, leads them to equatorial Africa.
List of characters
These names are as given in the original French version:
* Dick Sand
* Actéon
* Alvez
* Austin
* Bat
* Cousin Bénédict
* Coïmbra
* Dingo
* Halima
* Harris
* Big D
* Hercule, a recurring Verne character, here given the pseudonym Mgannga
* Howik
* Captain Hull
* Ibn Hamis
* Moina
* Moini Loungga
* Munito
* Nan
* Negoro
* Tipo-Tipo
* Tom
* Samuel Vernon
* Jack Weldon
* James-W. Weldon
* Mrs. Weldon
The Adventures of Three Russians and Three Englishmen in South Africa (French: Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais dans l'Afrique australe) is a novel by Jules Verne published in 1872.
Plot introduction
Three Russian and three English scientists depart to South Africa to measure the meridian. As their mission is proceeding, the Crimean war breaks out, and the members of the expedition find themselves citizens of enemy countries. This novel can be found under alternate titles such as "Adventures in the Land of the Behemoth," "Measuring a Meridian" and "Meridiana or Adventures in South Africa."
Plot introduction
Three Russian and three English scientists depart to South Africa to measure the meridian. As their mission is proceeding, the Crimean war breaks out, and the members of the expedition find themselves citizens of enemy countries. This novel can be found under alternate titles such as "Adventures in the Land of the Behemoth," "Measuring a Meridian" and "Meridiana or Adventures in South Africa."
“这些英国报纸编得真好！”和善的大夫仰靠在一张大皮扶手椅里自言自语地说。
萨拉赞大夫一辈子就这么自言自语的，这是他的消遣方式之一种。
他年已五十，眉目清秀，眼睛有神，清澈亮晶，戴着一副金属架眼镜，相貌既严肃又和蔼可亲，让人一看就是一个正人君子。这天早晨，尽管他此刻衣着并不十分考究，但却早已刮好脸，结上了白领带了。
萨拉赞大夫一辈子就这么自言自语的，这是他的消遣方式之一种。
他年已五十，眉目清秀，眼睛有神，清澈亮晶，戴着一副金属架眼镜，相貌既严肃又和蔼可亲，让人一看就是一个正人君子。这天早晨，尽管他此刻衣着并不十分考究，但却早已刮好脸，结上了白领带了。
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (French: Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne in two parts: The English at the North Pole (French: Les Anglais au pôle nord) and The desert of ice (French: Le Désert de glace).
The novel was published for the first time in 1864. The definitive version from 1866 was included into Voyages Extraordinaires series (The Extraordinary Voyages). Although it was the first book of the series it was labeled as number two. Three Verne's books from 1863-65 (Five Weeks in a Balloon, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon) were added into the series retroactively. Captain Hatteras shows many similarities with British explorer John Franklin.
Plot summary
The novel, set in 1861, described adventures of British expedition led by Captain John Hatteras to the North Pole. Hatteras is convinced that the sea around the pole is not frozen and his obsession is to reach the place no matter what. Mutiny by the crew results in destruction of their ship but Hatteras, with a few men, continues on the expedition. On the shore of the island of "New America" he discovers the remains of a ship used by the previous expedition from the United States. Doctor Clawbonny recalls in mind the plan of the real Ice palace, constructed completely from ice in Russia in 1740 to build a snow-house, where they should spend a winter. The travellers winter on the island and survive mainly due to the ingenuity of Doctor Clawbonny (who is able to make fire with an ice lens, make bullets from frozen mercury and repel attacks by polar bears with remotely controlled explosions of black powder).
When the winter ends the sea becomes ice-free. The travellers build a boat from the shipwreck and head towards the pole. Here they discover an island, an active volcano, and name it after Hatteras. With difficulty a fjord is found and the group get ashore. After three hours climbing they reach the mouth of the volcano. The exact location of the pole is in the crater and Hatteras jumps into it. As the sequence was originally written, Hatteras perishes in the crater; Verne's editor, Jules Hetzel, suggested or rather required that Verne do a rewrite so that Hatteras survives but is driven insane by the intensity of the experience, and after return to England he is put into an asylum for the insane. Losing his "soul" in the cavern of the North Pole, Hatteras never speaks another word. He spends the remainder of his days walking the streets surrounding the asylum with his faithful dog Duke. While mute and deaf to the world Hatteras' walks are not without a direction. As indicated by the last line "Captain Hatteras forever marches northward".
New America
New America (Nouvelle-Amerique) in map of Captain Hatteras' voyage
New America is the name given to a large Arctic island, a northward extension of Ellesmere Island, as discovered by Captain John Hatteras and his crew. Its features include, on the west coast, Victoria Bay, Cape Washington, Johnson Island, Bell Mountain, and Fort Providence, and at its northern point (87°5′N 118°35′W / 87.083°N 118.583°W / 87.083; -118.583), Altamont Harbour.
As with many of Verne's imaginative creations, his description of Arctic geography was based on scientific knowledge at the time the novel was written (1866) but foreshadowed future discoveries. Ellesmere Island had been re-discovered and named by Edward Inglefield in 1852 and further explored by Isaac Israel Hayes in 1860-61. Forty years after the novel's publication, in 1906, Robert Peary claimed to have sighted Crocker Land around 83° N, and in 1909, Frederick Cook sighted Bradley Land at 85° N, both at locations occupied by Verne's New America. Cook's choice of route may actually have been inspired by his reading of Verne.
The land is named by Captain Altamont, an American explorer, who is first to set foot on the land. In the novel as published, it is unclear whether New America is meant to be a territorial claim for the United States. As William Butcher points out, this would not be surprising, since Verne wrote about the US acquisition of Alaska in The Fur Country, and Lincoln Island is proposed as a US possession in The Mysterious Island. In fact, a deleted chapter, "John Bull and Jonathan," had Hatteras and Altamont dueling for the privilege of claiming the land for their respective countries.
In popular culture
In 1912, Georges Méliès made a film based on the story entitled Conquest of the Pole (French: Conquête du pôle).
The novel was published for the first time in 1864. The definitive version from 1866 was included into Voyages Extraordinaires series (The Extraordinary Voyages). Although it was the first book of the series it was labeled as number two. Three Verne's books from 1863-65 (Five Weeks in a Balloon, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon) were added into the series retroactively. Captain Hatteras shows many similarities with British explorer John Franklin.
Plot summary
The novel, set in 1861, described adventures of British expedition led by Captain John Hatteras to the North Pole. Hatteras is convinced that the sea around the pole is not frozen and his obsession is to reach the place no matter what. Mutiny by the crew results in destruction of their ship but Hatteras, with a few men, continues on the expedition. On the shore of the island of "New America" he discovers the remains of a ship used by the previous expedition from the United States. Doctor Clawbonny recalls in mind the plan of the real Ice palace, constructed completely from ice in Russia in 1740 to build a snow-house, where they should spend a winter. The travellers winter on the island and survive mainly due to the ingenuity of Doctor Clawbonny (who is able to make fire with an ice lens, make bullets from frozen mercury and repel attacks by polar bears with remotely controlled explosions of black powder).
When the winter ends the sea becomes ice-free. The travellers build a boat from the shipwreck and head towards the pole. Here they discover an island, an active volcano, and name it after Hatteras. With difficulty a fjord is found and the group get ashore. After three hours climbing they reach the mouth of the volcano. The exact location of the pole is in the crater and Hatteras jumps into it. As the sequence was originally written, Hatteras perishes in the crater; Verne's editor, Jules Hetzel, suggested or rather required that Verne do a rewrite so that Hatteras survives but is driven insane by the intensity of the experience, and after return to England he is put into an asylum for the insane. Losing his "soul" in the cavern of the North Pole, Hatteras never speaks another word. He spends the remainder of his days walking the streets surrounding the asylum with his faithful dog Duke. While mute and deaf to the world Hatteras' walks are not without a direction. As indicated by the last line "Captain Hatteras forever marches northward".
New America
New America (Nouvelle-Amerique) in map of Captain Hatteras' voyage
New America is the name given to a large Arctic island, a northward extension of Ellesmere Island, as discovered by Captain John Hatteras and his crew. Its features include, on the west coast, Victoria Bay, Cape Washington, Johnson Island, Bell Mountain, and Fort Providence, and at its northern point (87°5′N 118°35′W / 87.083°N 118.583°W / 87.083; -118.583), Altamont Harbour.
As with many of Verne's imaginative creations, his description of Arctic geography was based on scientific knowledge at the time the novel was written (1866) but foreshadowed future discoveries. Ellesmere Island had been re-discovered and named by Edward Inglefield in 1852 and further explored by Isaac Israel Hayes in 1860-61. Forty years after the novel's publication, in 1906, Robert Peary claimed to have sighted Crocker Land around 83° N, and in 1909, Frederick Cook sighted Bradley Land at 85° N, both at locations occupied by Verne's New America. Cook's choice of route may actually have been inspired by his reading of Verne.
The land is named by Captain Altamont, an American explorer, who is first to set foot on the land. In the novel as published, it is unclear whether New America is meant to be a territorial claim for the United States. As William Butcher points out, this would not be surprising, since Verne wrote about the US acquisition of Alaska in The Fur Country, and Lincoln Island is proposed as a US possession in The Mysterious Island. In fact, a deleted chapter, "John Bull and Jonathan," had Hatteras and Altamont dueling for the privilege of claiming the land for their respective countries.
In popular culture
In 1912, Georges Méliès made a film based on the story entitled Conquest of the Pole (French: Conquête du pôle).
A Drama in Mexico (French: Un drame au Mexique) is a historical short story by Jules Verne. In a letter to his father Verne wrote that it "is but a simple adventure-story in the style of Cooper which I am locating in Mexico."
The story was first published in July 1851 under the title "The First Ships of the Mexican Navy" ("L'Amérique du Sud. Etudes historiques. Les Premiers Navires de la Marine Mexicaine") in Museé des Familles with three illustrations by Eugène Forest and Alexandre de Bar. The revised version with six illustrations by Férat was published in 1876 together with the novel Michel Strogoff as a part of the Voyages Extraordinaires series. The first English translation by W. H. G. Kingston was published in 1876.
Plot outline
In 1825, off the islands of Guam on a passage from Spain, Lieutenant Martinez, and his associates plot a mutiny on board of two Spanish warships. Conspirators murder Captain Don Orteva, take command of the ships, and plan to sell them to the republican government in Mexico. But on arrival in Acapulco, Lieutenant Martinez and Jose[who?] are forced to embark on a cross-country trip to Mexico City that proves fatal to both.
The story was first published in July 1851 under the title "The First Ships of the Mexican Navy" ("L'Amérique du Sud. Etudes historiques. Les Premiers Navires de la Marine Mexicaine") in Museé des Familles with three illustrations by Eugène Forest and Alexandre de Bar. The revised version with six illustrations by Férat was published in 1876 together with the novel Michel Strogoff as a part of the Voyages Extraordinaires series. The first English translation by W. H. G. Kingston was published in 1876.
Plot outline
In 1825, off the islands of Guam on a passage from Spain, Lieutenant Martinez, and his associates plot a mutiny on board of two Spanish warships. Conspirators murder Captain Don Orteva, take command of the ships, and plan to sell them to the republican government in Mexico. But on arrival in Acapulco, Lieutenant Martinez and Jose[who?] are forced to embark on a cross-country trip to Mexico City that proves fatal to both.
“看来你们二位的这番争论是没个完了……，”米盖尔先生在吵得面红耳赤的两个人中间插了这么一句。
“是啊……没完了……，”费里佩先生说，“除非我向瓦里纳斯先生的观点投降……”
“我可是绝对不会屈从于费里佩先生的观点的！”瓦里纳斯先生反驳道。
这两个固执而博学的人已经互不相让地争吵了整整三个小时，话题是奥里诺科河，南美洲一条著名的河流，委内瑞拉的大动脉。两人争执不下的是它的支流问题：奥里诺科河最初的一段，若果真像新近出版的地图上所标画的那样是自东向西流，那么阿塔巴布河就不应称作它的支流而是它的正源；而如果是呈西南-东北方向的话，那么瓜维业雷河就是奥里诺科河的正源了。
“是啊……没完了……，”费里佩先生说，“除非我向瓦里纳斯先生的观点投降……”
“我可是绝对不会屈从于费里佩先生的观点的！”瓦里纳斯先生反驳道。
这两个固执而博学的人已经互不相让地争吵了整整三个小时，话题是奥里诺科河，南美洲一条著名的河流，委内瑞拉的大动脉。两人争执不下的是它的支流问题：奥里诺科河最初的一段，若果真像新近出版的地图上所标画的那样是自东向西流，那么阿塔巴布河就不应称作它的支流而是它的正源；而如果是呈西南-东北方向的话，那么瓜维业雷河就是奥里诺科河的正源了。
一八七六年八月五日，星期六。那天，挂着“渔夫之约”金字招牌的小酒店里挤满了吵吵嚷嚷的人群。歌声、叫声、碰杯声、鼓掌声、欢呼声，融汇成一片震耳的喧嚣。人们不时地齐声高呼“嗬呵”，这是德意志民族表示他们快乐到了极点的特有习惯。
小酒店位于迷人的齐格马林根小城的一隅，窗外便是多瑙河。齐格马林根是普鲁士领地霍恩佐伦的首府，距离中欧这条著名大河的源头很近。
“多瑙河协会”是河流两岸渔夫的国际性组织团体，会员们应门楣上那块漂亮的哥特体字招牌的邀请，聚集于此。无酒不成宴，因此，会员们斟满了所有的大啤酒杯及葡萄酒杯，痛饮香醇可口的慕尼黑啤酒和匈牙利葡萄酒。大家还抽着烟斗，长长的烟斗里不停地吐出呛鼻的烟雾，弄得整个大厅昏黑一片。但是，虽然会员们难以透过烟雾望见彼此，说话声却还是相互听得到的，除非是聋子。
手持钓竿的渔夫们在作业时是冷静且沉默的，而实际上，一放下活计，他们就成为世界上最喋喋不休的一群。一谈起他们的赫赫战功，他们的激动简直和猎手们不相伯仲。此话绝非虚言。
小酒店位于迷人的齐格马林根小城的一隅，窗外便是多瑙河。齐格马林根是普鲁士领地霍恩佐伦的首府，距离中欧这条著名大河的源头很近。
“多瑙河协会”是河流两岸渔夫的国际性组织团体，会员们应门楣上那块漂亮的哥特体字招牌的邀请，聚集于此。无酒不成宴，因此，会员们斟满了所有的大啤酒杯及葡萄酒杯，痛饮香醇可口的慕尼黑啤酒和匈牙利葡萄酒。大家还抽着烟斗，长长的烟斗里不停地吐出呛鼻的烟雾，弄得整个大厅昏黑一片。但是，虽然会员们难以透过烟雾望见彼此，说话声却还是相互听得到的，除非是聋子。
手持钓竿的渔夫们在作业时是冷静且沉默的，而实际上，一放下活计，他们就成为世界上最喋喋不休的一群。一谈起他们的赫赫战功，他们的激动简直和猎手们不相伯仲。此话绝非虚言。
《Phyjslyddqfdzxgasgzzqqehxgkfndrxujugiocytdxvksbxhhuypohdvyrymlhuhpuyd kjoxphetozsletnpmvffovpdpajxhyynojyggaymeqynfuqlnmvlyfgsuzmqiztlbqgyugsq eub vnrcredgruzblrmxyuhqhpzdrrgcrohepqxufivvrplphonthvddqfhqsntzhhhnfepmqkyu uex ktogzgkyuumfvijdqdpzjqsykrplxhxqrymvklohhhotozvdksppsuvjh．d．》
这是一份文件的最后一段，整份文件都是由这些奇怪的字母组合而成的。一个男人手持这份文件聚精会神地将其重读一遍之后，陷入了沉思。
这份文件共有百余行这样的文字，每个词语之间都没有间隙。文件看来已经写了有个把年头了，随着时间的流逝，写有这些难解符号的厚厚纸页已经开始泛黄了。
这是一份文件的最后一段，整份文件都是由这些奇怪的字母组合而成的。一个男人手持这份文件聚精会神地将其重读一遍之后，陷入了沉思。
这份文件共有百余行这样的文字，每个词语之间都没有间隙。文件看来已经写了有个把年头了，随着时间的流逝，写有这些难解符号的厚厚纸页已经开始泛黄了。
Invasion of the Sea (French: L'Invasion de la mer) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne describing the exploits of Arab nomads and European travelers in Saharan Africa. The purpose of the Westerners' visit is to study the feasibility of flooding a low-lying region of the Sahara desert to create an inland sea and open up the interior of Northern Africa to trade. In the end, however, the protagonists' pride in humanity's potential to control and reshape the world is humbled by a cataclysmic earthquake which results in the natural formation of just such a sea.
Translation history
Parts of the novel, under the title Captain Hardizan, were serialized in The American Weekly (the Sunday Supplement to the Boston American newspaper) from August 6, 1905 to August 13, 1905. The first complete English translation was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2001.
Translation history
Parts of the novel, under the title Captain Hardizan, were serialized in The American Weekly (the Sunday Supplement to the Boston American newspaper) from August 6, 1905 to August 13, 1905. The first complete English translation was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2001.
本故事的主人公在第一章中并未与读者见面。
当两个人在塞特车站下车时——他们是从巴黎乘火车来到这个濒临地中海的城市的——马塞尔·罗南对让·塔高纳说：
“在远洋轮出发之前，我们去做些什么呢？”
“什么也做不了。”让·塔高纳回答说。
“据《旅游指南》一书记载，塞特城古迹不多，可是却很奇特。这个城市的繁荣是从建立港口开始的。这个港口也是路易十四时代开凿的浪克多运河的终点。”
当两个人在塞特车站下车时——他们是从巴黎乘火车来到这个濒临地中海的城市的——马塞尔·罗南对让·塔高纳说：
“在远洋轮出发之前，我们去做些什么呢？”
“什么也做不了。”让·塔高纳回答说。
“据《旅游指南》一书记载，塞特城古迹不多，可是却很奇特。这个城市的繁荣是从建立港口开始的。这个港口也是路易十四时代开凿的浪克多运河的终点。”
爱尔兰面积有两千万英亩，大约合一千万公顷，由一位副国王统治。副国王也称总督，是受大不列颠君主委任，并配备一个私人顾问团。爱尔兰分四个省：东部伦斯特省、南部芒斯特省、西部康诺特省、北部阿尔斯特省。
据历史学家称，从前联合王国是一个完整的岛国；现在却一分为二，彼此精神上的抵牾要超过自然的隔阂。从建国之初，爱尔兰人就是法国人的朋友，英国人的对头。
据历史学家称，从前联合王国是一个完整的岛国；现在却一分为二，彼此精神上的抵牾要超过自然的隔阂。从建国之初，爱尔兰人就是法国人的朋友，英国人的对头。
这桩大胆的抢劫案，引起人们的普遍兴趣，如此的犯罪行为是不多见的。这就是有名的“中央银行案件”。
抢劫案发生在坐落于伦敦商场附近的中央银行德克办事处。办事处的经理那时是路易斯·罗伯特·巴克斯顿先生。
这个办事处设在一间用橡木柜台隔成不相等的两部分的大厅里。进门靠左手，在栅栏后面是出纳处，这栅栏又有一扇铁栅门与营业员办公的地方相通。长橡木柜台右边尽头有一扇转门，这是由顾客排队到营业厅的通路。办事处经理的办公室，则在营业厅的深处。一条走廊把营业厅和这幢大楼的公共前厅连接起来。
前厅的一头通过看门人的住房的门口；另一头，在主楼梯旁边，有双扇玻璃门通往地下室和后楼梯。
这场神秘的抢劫案，就是在这么个环境中发生的。
抢劫案发生在坐落于伦敦商场附近的中央银行德克办事处。办事处的经理那时是路易斯·罗伯特·巴克斯顿先生。
这个办事处设在一间用橡木柜台隔成不相等的两部分的大厅里。进门靠左手，在栅栏后面是出纳处，这栅栏又有一扇铁栅门与营业员办公的地方相通。长橡木柜台右边尽头有一扇转门，这是由顾客排队到营业厅的通路。办事处经理的办公室，则在营业厅的深处。一条走廊把营业厅和这幢大楼的公共前厅连接起来。
前厅的一头通过看门人的住房的门口；另一头，在主楼梯旁边，有双扇玻璃门通往地下室和后楼梯。
这场神秘的抢劫案，就是在这么个环境中发生的。
Traveling Scholarships (French: Bourses de voyage, 1903) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne.
The novel has not been translated to English as of 2009.
Plot summary
Antilian School is a renowned London college, which hosts only young people born in the Caribbean. Nine of its students are to be awarded travel grants offered by a wealthy Barbados man.
Harry Markel, (ex-captain become pirate) has been captured and transferred to England, he escaped with his accomplices and seized the Alert, a three-masted leaving, after having massacred the captain and crew. It is precisely on that ship that just embarking winners, accompanied by their mentor Horatio Patterson, the bursar of the school.
The long voyage across the Atlantic starts and Markel, who has assumed the identity of the murdered officer, prepares to kill its passengers. But he learns that they must receive a large sum of money from the hands of their benefactor upon their arrival in Barbados. By greed, he resigns himself to save the college temporarily.
On stops in stops, they will visit the islands where they were born, receiving a warm welcome from their parents and their friends. The trip in the archipelago is a delight, but it may end tragically. Indeed, when Markel became convinced that young people are in possession of the prize offered by Mrs. Seymour, he is preparing to commit his crime.
A sailor named Will Mitz, which took place on board the Alert on the recommendation of Mrs. Seymour, surprises the criminal plan of the false captain. Taking advantage of the night, he attempts an escape with the students, but fails, then takes command of the ship after locking up the pirates. The pirates experience a horrible end, having accidentally caused a fire that will sink the vessel.
Mitz and his proteges succeed in escaping in the boat's demise and live through difficult times before being rescued by a steamer and are repatriated to Britain. Residents gather when their school for another busy year after the trip as exciting as eventful.
The novel has not been translated to English as of 2009.
Plot summary
Antilian School is a renowned London college, which hosts only young people born in the Caribbean. Nine of its students are to be awarded travel grants offered by a wealthy Barbados man.
Harry Markel, (ex-captain become pirate) has been captured and transferred to England, he escaped with his accomplices and seized the Alert, a three-masted leaving, after having massacred the captain and crew. It is precisely on that ship that just embarking winners, accompanied by their mentor Horatio Patterson, the bursar of the school.
The long voyage across the Atlantic starts and Markel, who has assumed the identity of the murdered officer, prepares to kill its passengers. But he learns that they must receive a large sum of money from the hands of their benefactor upon their arrival in Barbados. By greed, he resigns himself to save the college temporarily.
On stops in stops, they will visit the islands where they were born, receiving a warm welcome from their parents and their friends. The trip in the archipelago is a delight, but it may end tragically. Indeed, when Markel became convinced that young people are in possession of the prize offered by Mrs. Seymour, he is preparing to commit his crime.
A sailor named Will Mitz, which took place on board the Alert on the recommendation of Mrs. Seymour, surprises the criminal plan of the false captain. Taking advantage of the night, he attempts an escape with the students, but fails, then takes command of the ship after locking up the pirates. The pirates experience a horrible end, having accidentally caused a fire that will sink the vessel.
Mitz and his proteges succeed in escaping in the boat's demise and live through difficult times before being rescued by a steamer and are repatriated to Britain. Residents gather when their school for another busy year after the trip as exciting as eventful.
Captain Antifer (French: Mirifiques Aventures de Maître Antifer, 1894) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne.
Publication history
* 1895, UK, London: Sampson Low, 319 pp., English translation
Publication history
* 1895, UK, London: Sampson Low, 319 pp., English translation
In Search of the Castaways (French: Les Enfants du capitaine Grant, lit. The Children of Captain Grant) is a novel by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1867–1868. The original edition, by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Edouard Riou. In 1876 it was republished by George Routledge & Sons as a three volume set titled "A Voyage Round The World". The three volumes were subtitled "South America", "Australia", and "New Zealand".
Plot summary
The book tells the story of the quest for Captain Grant of the Britannia. After finding a bottle cast into the ocean by the captain himself after the Britannia is shipwrecked, Lord and Lady Glenarvan of Scotland contact Mary and Robert, the young daughter and son of Captain Grant, through an announcement in a newspaper. Moved by the children's condition, Lord and Lady Glenarvan decide to launch a rescue expedition. The main difficulty is that the coordinates of the wreckage are mostly erased, and only the latitude (37 degrees) is known; thus, the expedition would have to circumnavigate the 37th parallel south. Remaining clues consist of a few words in three languages. They are re-interpreted several times throughout the novel to make various destinations seem likely.
Lord Glenarvan makes it his quest to find Grant; together with his wife, Grant's children and the crew of his yacht the Duncan they set off for South America. An unexpected passenger in the form of French geographer Jacques Paganel (he missed his steamer to India by accidentally boarding on the Duncan) joins the search. They explore Patagonia, Tristan da Cunha Island, Amsterdam Island, and Australia (a pretext to describe the flora, fauna, and geography of numerous places to the targeted audience).
There, they find a former quarter-master of the Britannia, Ayrton, who proposes to lead them to the site of the wreckage. However, Ayrton is a traitor, who was not present during the loss of the Britannia, but was abandoned in Australia after a failed attempt to seize control of the ship to practice piracy. He tries to take control of the Duncan, but out of sheer luck, this attempt also fails. However the Glenarvans, the Grant children, Paganel and some sailors are left in Australia, and mistakenly believing that the Duncan is lost, they sail to Auckland, New Zealand, from where they want to come back to Europe. When their ship is wrecked south of Auckland on the New Zealand coast, they are captured by a Māori tribe, but luckily manage to escape and board a ship that they discover, with their greatest surprise, to be the Duncan.
Ayrton, made a prisoner, offers to trade his knowledge of Captain Grant in exchange for being abandoned on a desert island instead of being surrendered to the British authorities. The Duncan sets sail for the Tabor Island, which, out of sheer luck, turns out to be Captain Grant's shelter. They leave Ayrton in his place to live among the beasts and regain his humanity.
Ayrton reappears in Verne's later novel, L'Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island, 1874).
Film, TV, or theatrical adaptations
* 1936 - Дети капитана Гранта (Deti kapitana Granta), Soviet Union, directed by Vladimir Vajnshtok and starring Nikolai Cherkasov, film score composed by Isaak Dunayevsky. The film was released in USA as Captain Grant's Children. (see Deti kapitana Granta at the Internet Movie Database).
* 1962 - In Search of the Castaways, United States, directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Maurice Chevalier, Hayley Mills, and George Sanders. Songs by the Sherman Brothers were: "Castaway", "Enjoy It!", "Let's Climb", "Merci Beaucoup". (see In Search of the Castaways at the Internet Movie Database).
* 1985 - В поисках капитана Гранта (V poiskah kapitana Granta, In Search of Captain Grant, "Децата на капитан Грант"), Bulgaria - Soviet Union, TV mini-series directed by Stanislav Govorukhin starring Nikolai Yeryomenko, Lembit Ulfsak, Aleksandr Abdulov, Kosta Tsonev, Anya Pencheva. (see V poiskah kapitana Granta at the Internet Movie Database)
* Los sobrinos del Capitán Grant ("Captain Grant's nephews") is an 1877 Spanish comic zarzuela (operetta) by Miguel Ramos Carrión and Manuel Fernández Caballero.
Plot summary
The book tells the story of the quest for Captain Grant of the Britannia. After finding a bottle cast into the ocean by the captain himself after the Britannia is shipwrecked, Lord and Lady Glenarvan of Scotland contact Mary and Robert, the young daughter and son of Captain Grant, through an announcement in a newspaper. Moved by the children's condition, Lord and Lady Glenarvan decide to launch a rescue expedition. The main difficulty is that the coordinates of the wreckage are mostly erased, and only the latitude (37 degrees) is known; thus, the expedition would have to circumnavigate the 37th parallel south. Remaining clues consist of a few words in three languages. They are re-interpreted several times throughout the novel to make various destinations seem likely.
Lord Glenarvan makes it his quest to find Grant; together with his wife, Grant's children and the crew of his yacht the Duncan they set off for South America. An unexpected passenger in the form of French geographer Jacques Paganel (he missed his steamer to India by accidentally boarding on the Duncan) joins the search. They explore Patagonia, Tristan da Cunha Island, Amsterdam Island, and Australia (a pretext to describe the flora, fauna, and geography of numerous places to the targeted audience).
There, they find a former quarter-master of the Britannia, Ayrton, who proposes to lead them to the site of the wreckage. However, Ayrton is a traitor, who was not present during the loss of the Britannia, but was abandoned in Australia after a failed attempt to seize control of the ship to practice piracy. He tries to take control of the Duncan, but out of sheer luck, this attempt also fails. However the Glenarvans, the Grant children, Paganel and some sailors are left in Australia, and mistakenly believing that the Duncan is lost, they sail to Auckland, New Zealand, from where they want to come back to Europe. When their ship is wrecked south of Auckland on the New Zealand coast, they are captured by a Māori tribe, but luckily manage to escape and board a ship that they discover, with their greatest surprise, to be the Duncan.
Ayrton, made a prisoner, offers to trade his knowledge of Captain Grant in exchange for being abandoned on a desert island instead of being surrendered to the British authorities. The Duncan sets sail for the Tabor Island, which, out of sheer luck, turns out to be Captain Grant's shelter. They leave Ayrton in his place to live among the beasts and regain his humanity.
Ayrton reappears in Verne's later novel, L'Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island, 1874).
Film, TV, or theatrical adaptations
* 1936 - Дети капитана Гранта (Deti kapitana Granta), Soviet Union, directed by Vladimir Vajnshtok and starring Nikolai Cherkasov, film score composed by Isaak Dunayevsky. The film was released in USA as Captain Grant's Children. (see Deti kapitana Granta at the Internet Movie Database).
* 1962 - In Search of the Castaways, United States, directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Maurice Chevalier, Hayley Mills, and George Sanders. Songs by the Sherman Brothers were: "Castaway", "Enjoy It!", "Let's Climb", "Merci Beaucoup". (see In Search of the Castaways at the Internet Movie Database).
* 1985 - В поисках капитана Гранта (V poiskah kapitana Granta, In Search of Captain Grant, "Децата на капитан Грант"), Bulgaria - Soviet Union, TV mini-series directed by Stanislav Govorukhin starring Nikolai Yeryomenko, Lembit Ulfsak, Aleksandr Abdulov, Kosta Tsonev, Anya Pencheva. (see V poiskah kapitana Granta at the Internet Movie Database)
* Los sobrinos del Capitán Grant ("Captain Grant's nephews") is an 1877 Spanish comic zarzuela (operetta) by Miguel Ramos Carrión and Manuel Fernández Caballero.
First serialized in Le Temps in 1885, Mathias Sandorf is Jules Verne's epic Mediterranean adventure. It employs many of the devices that had served well in his earlier novels: islands, cryptograms, surprise revelations of identity, technically advanced hardware and a solitary figure bent on revenge. Verne dedicated the novel to the memory of Alexandre Dumas, pere, hoping to make Mathias Sandorf the Monte Cristo of Voyages Extraordinaires (The Extraordinary Voyages) series.
Overview
Trieste, 1867. Two petty criminals, Sarcany and Zirone, intercept a carrier pigeon. They find a ciphered message attached to its leg and uncover a plot to liberate Hungary from Habsburg-Austrian rule. The two meet with Silas Toronthal, a corrupt banker, and form a plan to deliver the conspirators to the police in exchange for a rich reward. The three Hungarian conspirators, Count Mathias Sandorf, Stephen Bathory and Ladislas Zathmar (in their Hungarian form: Sándor Mátyás, Báthory István and Szatmári László, respectively) are arrested and sentenced to death. Only Sandorf can escape.
Fifteen years later, the renowned physician Dr. Antekirtt (actually Sandorf) sets out to avenge his friends. Enlisting the aid of two French acrobats, Pescade and Matifou, he scours the Mediterranean in search of those who planned the betrayal. Rich beyond all imagination, wielding great power and master of an island fortress filled with advanced weaponry, Dr. Antekirtt will not rest until justice is done.
The Wanderer's Tale: An Adventure Subgenre
In the generation after Dumas, Jules Verne wrote a number of Wanderer adventures. Three of the most notable, Michael Strogoff, the Steam House (La Maison à vapeur) and Mathias Sandorf, are set in three of Europe's great Empires: the Russian, the British (in India,) and the Austrian. Their plots and themes have a good deal in common, as Jean Yves Tadie points out. Each one is about the empire's political troubles, each features a pursuer who is himself pursued, each has a trio of characters at its centre and each grants minor importance (compared with other Verne books) to machinery.
(From Seven Types of Adventure: An Eniology of Major Genre by Martin Green Penn State Press).
Background on the novel
Verne claimed that Sandorf was modeled on his publisher. Like Hetzel, a former exile, Sandorf has fervent patriotism and a high moral sense. Dr Antekirtt is a mixture of Hetzel and Bixio, one of the publisher's friends. Others see similarities with Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth and Austrian prince Louis Salvator.
The action moves from Trieste down the Adriatic coast, to Sicily and the shores of North Africa. "I wish my readers to learn everything they should know about the Mediterranean," Verne wrote Hetzel," which is why the action transports them to twenty different places" (Simon Vierne, Jules Verne, Paris Ballard 1986). Several of the settings come from Verne's own travels, a rescue during a storm off Malta and visits to Catania and Etna.
Verne researched the Italian landscape by rereading some of Stendhal's works notably Promenades in Rome and The Charterhourse of Parma. Verne may have first heard about the Foiba beneath Pisino castle in Charles Yriarte’s works Les Bords de l'Adriatique (The Ports of the Adriatic) - (Hachette, Paris 1878) and Trieste e l'Istria (Trieste and Istria) - (Hachette, Paris 1875). Yriatre described the old castle as well as his trip down into the gorge. He also mentioned an experiment by a young nobleman, Count Esdorff, to find the end of the underground river. Unfortunately the count's boat never made it out of the underground cave.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Mathias Sandorf was performed as a five act play in Paris in the 1880s. It even played the Boston theatre in the fall of 1888.
There have also been three screen adaptations of Mathias Sandorf. The first was made in 1921 and directed by Henri Fescourt. It starred Yvette Andréyor, Romuald Joube, Jean Toulout. During the 20s Fescourt was one of the most successful directors working for Cineroman, and Mathias Sandorf, Les Gransa and Mandarin were among his most popular works.
In in 1963 Georges Lampin directed another version and starring Louis Jourdan, Francisco Rabal, Renaud Mary, Serena Vergano. The most recent version was a TV miniseries made for French television in 1979. Directed by Jean-Pierre Decourt it starred the hungarian Istvan Bujtor as Mathias Sandorf, Ivan Desny as Zathmar, Amadeus August, Claude Giraud, Monika Peitsch, Sissy Höfferer, Jacques Breuer.
Overview
Trieste, 1867. Two petty criminals, Sarcany and Zirone, intercept a carrier pigeon. They find a ciphered message attached to its leg and uncover a plot to liberate Hungary from Habsburg-Austrian rule. The two meet with Silas Toronthal, a corrupt banker, and form a plan to deliver the conspirators to the police in exchange for a rich reward. The three Hungarian conspirators, Count Mathias Sandorf, Stephen Bathory and Ladislas Zathmar (in their Hungarian form: Sándor Mátyás, Báthory István and Szatmári László, respectively) are arrested and sentenced to death. Only Sandorf can escape.
Fifteen years later, the renowned physician Dr. Antekirtt (actually Sandorf) sets out to avenge his friends. Enlisting the aid of two French acrobats, Pescade and Matifou, he scours the Mediterranean in search of those who planned the betrayal. Rich beyond all imagination, wielding great power and master of an island fortress filled with advanced weaponry, Dr. Antekirtt will not rest until justice is done.
The Wanderer's Tale: An Adventure Subgenre
In the generation after Dumas, Jules Verne wrote a number of Wanderer adventures. Three of the most notable, Michael Strogoff, the Steam House (La Maison à vapeur) and Mathias Sandorf, are set in three of Europe's great Empires: the Russian, the British (in India,) and the Austrian. Their plots and themes have a good deal in common, as Jean Yves Tadie points out. Each one is about the empire's political troubles, each features a pursuer who is himself pursued, each has a trio of characters at its centre and each grants minor importance (compared with other Verne books) to machinery.
(From Seven Types of Adventure: An Eniology of Major Genre by Martin Green Penn State Press).
Background on the novel
Verne claimed that Sandorf was modeled on his publisher. Like Hetzel, a former exile, Sandorf has fervent patriotism and a high moral sense. Dr Antekirtt is a mixture of Hetzel and Bixio, one of the publisher's friends. Others see similarities with Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth and Austrian prince Louis Salvator.
The action moves from Trieste down the Adriatic coast, to Sicily and the shores of North Africa. "I wish my readers to learn everything they should know about the Mediterranean," Verne wrote Hetzel," which is why the action transports them to twenty different places" (Simon Vierne, Jules Verne, Paris Ballard 1986). Several of the settings come from Verne's own travels, a rescue during a storm off Malta and visits to Catania and Etna.
Verne researched the Italian landscape by rereading some of Stendhal's works notably Promenades in Rome and The Charterhourse of Parma. Verne may have first heard about the Foiba beneath Pisino castle in Charles Yriarte’s works Les Bords de l'Adriatique (The Ports of the Adriatic) - (Hachette, Paris 1878) and Trieste e l'Istria (Trieste and Istria) - (Hachette, Paris 1875). Yriatre described the old castle as well as his trip down into the gorge. He also mentioned an experiment by a young nobleman, Count Esdorff, to find the end of the underground river. Unfortunately the count's boat never made it out of the underground cave.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Mathias Sandorf was performed as a five act play in Paris in the 1880s. It even played the Boston theatre in the fall of 1888.
There have also been three screen adaptations of Mathias Sandorf. The first was made in 1921 and directed by Henri Fescourt. It starred Yvette Andréyor, Romuald Joube, Jean Toulout. During the 20s Fescourt was one of the most successful directors working for Cineroman, and Mathias Sandorf, Les Gransa and Mandarin were among his most popular works.
In in 1963 Georges Lampin directed another version and starring Louis Jourdan, Francisco Rabal, Renaud Mary, Serena Vergano. The most recent version was a TV miniseries made for French television in 1979. Directed by Jean-Pierre Decourt it starred the hungarian Istvan Bujtor as Mathias Sandorf, Ivan Desny as Zathmar, Amadeus August, Claude Giraud, Monika Peitsch, Sissy Höfferer, Jacques Breuer.
Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen (French: Cinq semaines en ballon) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne.
It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets.
Public interest in fanciful tales of African exploration was at its height, and the book was an instant hit; it made Verne financially independent and got him a contract with Jules Hetzel's publishing house, which put out several dozen more works of his for over forty years afterward.
Plot summary
A scholar, Dr. Samuel Ferguson, accompanied by his manservant Joe and his friend Richard "Dick" Kennedy, sets out to travel across the African continent — still not fully explored — with the help of a hot-air balloon filled with hydrogen. He has invented a mechanism that, by eliminating the need to release gas or throw ballast overboard to control his altitude, allows very long trips to be taken. This voyage is meant to link together the voyages of Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke in East Africa with those of Heinrich Barth in the regions of the Sahara and Chad. The trip begins in Zanzibar on the east coast, and passes across Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Agadez, Timbuktu, Djenné and Ségou to St Louis in modern day Senegal on the west coast. The book describes the unknown interior of Africa near modern day Central African Republic as a desert, when it is actually savanna.
Map of the trip described in the book from the east to the west coast of Africa.
A good deal of the initial exploration is to focus on the finding of the source of the Nile, an event that occurs in chapter 18 (out of 43). The second leg is to link up the other explorers. There are numerous scenes of adventure, composed of either a conflict with a native or a conflict with the environment. Some examples include:
* Rescuing of a missionary from a tribe that was preparing to sacrifice him.
* Running out of water while stranded, windless, "over" the Sahara.
* An attack on the balloon by condors, leading to a dramatic action as Joe leaps out of the balloon.
* The actions taken to rescue Joe later.
* Narrowly escaping the remnants of a militant army as the balloon dwindles to nothingness with the loss of hydrogen.
In all these adventures, the protagonists overcome by continued perseverance more than anything else. The novel is filled with coincidental moments where trouble is avoided because wind catches up at just the right time, or the characters look in just the right direction. There are frequent references to a higher power watching out for them, as tidy an explanation as any.
The balloon itself ultimately fails before the end, but makes it far enough across to get the protagonists to friendly lands, and eventually back to England, therefore succeeding in the expedition. The story abruptly ends after the African trip, with only a brief synopsis of what follows.
Themes of the novel
The novel has several themes and motifs central to European exploration: scientific achievement, the otherworldliness of the region explored, and the question of how much shared humanity there is between the explorers and the natives. The balloon is a straight allegory of scientific achievement overcoming the wild, as well as overcoming the limitations of the Western world. Most of the Africans are contrasted as being superstitious and quick to worship any object cast down from the balloon, though Verne does not generalize this to all religion. The treatment of animals is in line with the image of the Great White Hunter. This is most obvious by Dick's statement, upon seeing a herd of elephants, "Oh, what magnificent elephants! Is there no way to get a little shooting?" These aspects are both tied into the explorers being above, quite literally in this novel, the region they are traveling across, and Verne makes them worthy of their status through their technological achievements.
As one scene where the explorers confuse baboons for black men illustrates, Africa is approached as an alien place. The explorers do not, and maybe cannot, fully understand the people they are interacting with (or, as the case may be, avoiding). Only later in the novel do they comment on the similarities between themselves and the people they have flown over, when they hold that the Africans' ways of war are not one whit worse than white men's, only filthier. In most scenes, neither the Africans nor the explorers show much compassion for the other.
In Chapter 16, the Doctor equates Africa to the "Last Machine", which will serve as the place of human growth after the Americas are dry. His depiction is of an Africa tamed and cultivated over years to come.
Inconsistent scientific/technological reference
The description of the apparatus used to heat the hydrogen gas in the balloon is deeply flawed. Jules Verne states that it uses a powerful electric battery to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burns resulting hydrogen in a blow-pipe. He also says that the apparatus weighs 700 pounds (including the battery) and it is able to process 25 gallons of water. This is physically impossible. Even using state-of-the-art 21st century batteries (e.g. lithium-ion batteries) and assuming zero losses, one needs over 4000 pounds of batteries to electrolyze that much water. This number should be increased by at least a factor of five if authentic mid-19th century batteries are to be used. It would have been far more realistic simply to electrolyze the water up front and to load a tank of compressed hydrogen onto the balloon (electrolysis of that quantity of water produces less than 25 pounds of hydrogen).
Further, it would have been more efficient to use the energy contained in the battery to heat the gas directly. Electrolysis of water is not 100% efficient. So some of the energy contained in the battery is wasted and the heat generated by burning the obtained hydrogen is less than the heat that could have been obtained by simply using a resistance connected to the battery. In fact, Verne implies that the described device is a perpetual motion machine, since he implies that greater energy can be obtained by electrolysis than could have been obtained from the battery directly: if this were true, then the obtained hydrogen could be used to boil water to create steam to power an electrical generator to create more electricity for the battery. This may have been a deliberate joke by Verne.
Though the novel goes into great detail with much of the calculations involving the lift power of the hydrogen balloon, and how to obtain the proper amount of volume through changes in temperature, there are gaps in the logic. The balloon rises up when heated, and lowers as it is allowed to cool. This pattern is used as numerous plot points and is shown to be a somewhat quick process of cooling. At night, however, there is little mention of them maintaining the temperature through the night. Another gap in the scientific logic is the lack of reference to the effect of atmospheric temperature on the balloon itself, though the temperature is referenced as affecting the heating coil.
And it would be very dangerous to light a fire in the nacelle under a balloon filled with hydrogen.
Further, in Chapter 41, the load carried is progressively reduced in order to allow the balloon to rise higher and higher. But in fact a single load reduction would have been sufficient, because at that point the lift of the balloon would have exceeded the weight and it would have continued to rise until the volume of gas was reduced. (The density of air decreases with increasing altitude, thus reducing the lift at constant balloon volume, but the balloon would expand proportionately, due to decreasing air pressure, thus maintaining constant total lift.)
In Chapter 26, it says the doctor takes the balloon up to five miles. Later, in Chapter 29, in order to get over Mount Mendif, the doctor "by means of a temperature increased to one hundred and eighty degrees, gave the balloon a fresh ascensional force of nearly sixteen hundred pounds, and it went up to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet" which is noted as being "the greatest height attained during the journey." If this is meant to imply that the doctor went eight thousand feet above Mount Mendif, at a height greater than five miles, Jules Verne would have greatly underestimated the drop in temperature and how much heat would have been required to keep the balloon at that height for any length of time.
At the time when the book was first written, lands to the north and northwest of Lake Victoria were still poorly known to Europeans. Jules Verne makes a few inaccurate predictions here, such as placing the source of the Nile river at 2°40′N (instead of 0°45′N); claiming that this source is just over 90 miles from of Gondokoro (the actual distance is closer to 300 miles); not mentioning Lake Albert at all (it was not discovered by Europeans until after the publication of the book). Much of the geography described further in the book is completely fictional. For example, coordinates given for the "desert oasis" in chapter 27 correspond to a location in a savanna region of southern Chad, less than twenty miles from a big river.
Similarities to later novels
Five Weeks has a handful of similarities to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. There is the same sort of conjecture from current scientific ideas and what Verne puts forth as the actual truth (though Five Weeks is far more successful, assuming there is any attempt at accuracy with Journey). The party of three characters is similarly divided into the Doctor, the doubtful companion who initially balks at the journey, and the servant who is quite able. In both novels, Purdey rifles are referenced. In both novels, there is an episode of despair categorized by thirst.
Also, neither novel deals directly with the French, but with (generally positive) stereotypes of other countries.
It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets.
Public interest in fanciful tales of African exploration was at its height, and the book was an instant hit; it made Verne financially independent and got him a contract with Jules Hetzel's publishing house, which put out several dozen more works of his for over forty years afterward.
Plot summary
A scholar, Dr. Samuel Ferguson, accompanied by his manservant Joe and his friend Richard "Dick" Kennedy, sets out to travel across the African continent — still not fully explored — with the help of a hot-air balloon filled with hydrogen. He has invented a mechanism that, by eliminating the need to release gas or throw ballast overboard to control his altitude, allows very long trips to be taken. This voyage is meant to link together the voyages of Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke in East Africa with those of Heinrich Barth in the regions of the Sahara and Chad. The trip begins in Zanzibar on the east coast, and passes across Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Agadez, Timbuktu, Djenné and Ségou to St Louis in modern day Senegal on the west coast. The book describes the unknown interior of Africa near modern day Central African Republic as a desert, when it is actually savanna.
Map of the trip described in the book from the east to the west coast of Africa.
A good deal of the initial exploration is to focus on the finding of the source of the Nile, an event that occurs in chapter 18 (out of 43). The second leg is to link up the other explorers. There are numerous scenes of adventure, composed of either a conflict with a native or a conflict with the environment. Some examples include:
* Rescuing of a missionary from a tribe that was preparing to sacrifice him.
* Running out of water while stranded, windless, "over" the Sahara.
* An attack on the balloon by condors, leading to a dramatic action as Joe leaps out of the balloon.
* The actions taken to rescue Joe later.
* Narrowly escaping the remnants of a militant army as the balloon dwindles to nothingness with the loss of hydrogen.
In all these adventures, the protagonists overcome by continued perseverance more than anything else. The novel is filled with coincidental moments where trouble is avoided because wind catches up at just the right time, or the characters look in just the right direction. There are frequent references to a higher power watching out for them, as tidy an explanation as any.
The balloon itself ultimately fails before the end, but makes it far enough across to get the protagonists to friendly lands, and eventually back to England, therefore succeeding in the expedition. The story abruptly ends after the African trip, with only a brief synopsis of what follows.
Themes of the novel
The novel has several themes and motifs central to European exploration: scientific achievement, the otherworldliness of the region explored, and the question of how much shared humanity there is between the explorers and the natives. The balloon is a straight allegory of scientific achievement overcoming the wild, as well as overcoming the limitations of the Western world. Most of the Africans are contrasted as being superstitious and quick to worship any object cast down from the balloon, though Verne does not generalize this to all religion. The treatment of animals is in line with the image of the Great White Hunter. This is most obvious by Dick's statement, upon seeing a herd of elephants, "Oh, what magnificent elephants! Is there no way to get a little shooting?" These aspects are both tied into the explorers being above, quite literally in this novel, the region they are traveling across, and Verne makes them worthy of their status through their technological achievements.
As one scene where the explorers confuse baboons for black men illustrates, Africa is approached as an alien place. The explorers do not, and maybe cannot, fully understand the people they are interacting with (or, as the case may be, avoiding). Only later in the novel do they comment on the similarities between themselves and the people they have flown over, when they hold that the Africans' ways of war are not one whit worse than white men's, only filthier. In most scenes, neither the Africans nor the explorers show much compassion for the other.
In Chapter 16, the Doctor equates Africa to the "Last Machine", which will serve as the place of human growth after the Americas are dry. His depiction is of an Africa tamed and cultivated over years to come.
Inconsistent scientific/technological reference
The description of the apparatus used to heat the hydrogen gas in the balloon is deeply flawed. Jules Verne states that it uses a powerful electric battery to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burns resulting hydrogen in a blow-pipe. He also says that the apparatus weighs 700 pounds (including the battery) and it is able to process 25 gallons of water. This is physically impossible. Even using state-of-the-art 21st century batteries (e.g. lithium-ion batteries) and assuming zero losses, one needs over 4000 pounds of batteries to electrolyze that much water. This number should be increased by at least a factor of five if authentic mid-19th century batteries are to be used. It would have been far more realistic simply to electrolyze the water up front and to load a tank of compressed hydrogen onto the balloon (electrolysis of that quantity of water produces less than 25 pounds of hydrogen).
Further, it would have been more efficient to use the energy contained in the battery to heat the gas directly. Electrolysis of water is not 100% efficient. So some of the energy contained in the battery is wasted and the heat generated by burning the obtained hydrogen is less than the heat that could have been obtained by simply using a resistance connected to the battery. In fact, Verne implies that the described device is a perpetual motion machine, since he implies that greater energy can be obtained by electrolysis than could have been obtained from the battery directly: if this were true, then the obtained hydrogen could be used to boil water to create steam to power an electrical generator to create more electricity for the battery. This may have been a deliberate joke by Verne.
Though the novel goes into great detail with much of the calculations involving the lift power of the hydrogen balloon, and how to obtain the proper amount of volume through changes in temperature, there are gaps in the logic. The balloon rises up when heated, and lowers as it is allowed to cool. This pattern is used as numerous plot points and is shown to be a somewhat quick process of cooling. At night, however, there is little mention of them maintaining the temperature through the night. Another gap in the scientific logic is the lack of reference to the effect of atmospheric temperature on the balloon itself, though the temperature is referenced as affecting the heating coil.
And it would be very dangerous to light a fire in the nacelle under a balloon filled with hydrogen.
Further, in Chapter 41, the load carried is progressively reduced in order to allow the balloon to rise higher and higher. But in fact a single load reduction would have been sufficient, because at that point the lift of the balloon would have exceeded the weight and it would have continued to rise until the volume of gas was reduced. (The density of air decreases with increasing altitude, thus reducing the lift at constant balloon volume, but the balloon would expand proportionately, due to decreasing air pressure, thus maintaining constant total lift.)
In Chapter 26, it says the doctor takes the balloon up to five miles. Later, in Chapter 29, in order to get over Mount Mendif, the doctor "by means of a temperature increased to one hundred and eighty degrees, gave the balloon a fresh ascensional force of nearly sixteen hundred pounds, and it went up to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet" which is noted as being "the greatest height attained during the journey." If this is meant to imply that the doctor went eight thousand feet above Mount Mendif, at a height greater than five miles, Jules Verne would have greatly underestimated the drop in temperature and how much heat would have been required to keep the balloon at that height for any length of time.
At the time when the book was first written, lands to the north and northwest of Lake Victoria were still poorly known to Europeans. Jules Verne makes a few inaccurate predictions here, such as placing the source of the Nile river at 2°40′N (instead of 0°45′N); claiming that this source is just over 90 miles from of Gondokoro (the actual distance is closer to 300 miles); not mentioning Lake Albert at all (it was not discovered by Europeans until after the publication of the book). Much of the geography described further in the book is completely fictional. For example, coordinates given for the "desert oasis" in chapter 27 correspond to a location in a savanna region of southern Chad, less than twenty miles from a big river.
Similarities to later novels
Five Weeks has a handful of similarities to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. There is the same sort of conjecture from current scientific ideas and what Verne puts forth as the actual truth (though Five Weeks is far more successful, assuming there is any attempt at accuracy with Journey). The party of three characters is similarly divided into the Doctor, the doubtful companion who initially balks at the journey, and the servant who is quite able. In both novels, Purdey rifles are referenced. In both novels, there is an episode of despair categorized by thirst.
Also, neither novel deals directly with the French, but with (generally positive) stereotypes of other countries.
“陛下，又来了一份电报。”
“从哪儿来的？”
“从托木斯克。”
“这座城市以远的电线都被切断了吗？”
“从昨天起都被切断了。”
“将军，每隔一小时向托木斯克发一份电报，并派人向我汇报。”
“是，陛下，”基索夫将军答道。
这番对话发生在凌晨两点钟，正是在新宫举行的晚会异彩纷呈的时刻。
“从哪儿来的？”
“从托木斯克。”
“这座城市以远的电线都被切断了吗？”
“从昨天起都被切断了。”
“将军，每隔一小时向托木斯克发一份电报，并派人向我汇报。”
“是，陛下，”基索夫将军答道。
这番对话发生在凌晨两点钟，正是在新宫举行的晚会异彩纷呈的时刻。
为了获得更多的毛皮，哈得孙湾皮毛公司派遣了一个小分队，到北纬70度以北的美洲大陆边缘地带创建一个猎取毛皮兽的新据点。孰料，小分队误把据点建在了大陆边缘的一块巨大浮冰上。在突如其来的一场地震中，浮冰与大陆脱离，变成了一座浮岛，载着小分队随海水漂移。由于阳光和暖流的双重作用，浮冰渐渐融化，浮岛越来越小，岛上的人员面临灭顶之灾。绝境中，全体队员团结一致，发挥巨大的勇气和聪明才智，终于使浮冰在即将全部融化前靠上了一个小岛，全体队员得以死里逃生。书中以读者展现了充满神秘色彩的极地风貌，使读者身临其境地领略了极地的壮丽与奇特。