Works of Jules Verne Author:Jules Verne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I AN OCEAN WAIF O doubt the following narrative will be received with entire incredulity, but I think it well that the public should be put in... more » possession of the facts narrated in " An Antarctic Mystery." The public is free to believe them or not, at its good pleasure. I am a Connecticut naturalist possessed of a small independent fortune. In the year 1839 I was engaged in research work among the islands of the far southern ocean. Chance brought me aboard the English trading brig Hal- brane, whose captain, Len Guy, was at first most unwilling to receive me; for, as he most mysteriously declared, he could never tell to what region he might suddenly turn his ship. An accidental reference of mine to my favorite author Poe, suddenly roused Captain Guy's equal enthusiasm, and we became fast friends upon this common ground. Not, however, till I had been two weeks upon his ship, did he more fully explain to me his strange interest in the great American author. Among Poe's most remarkable works is his tale of the Antarctic seas called "The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym." I had always supposed the story to be pure fiction of the most fantastic sort; but Captain Len Guy assured me that it must be at least founded upon fact, for the sea-captain it described, William Guy, had been his own brother, who with his ship the Jane had disappeared in these waters about the time of Poe's narrative. Briefly summarized, the narrative of 'Arthur Gordon Pym tells how Pym, after many disastrous adventures was left with only one companion, a half-breed Indian, Dirk Peters, as survivors on a shipwrecked bark. In their ex- termity they had even been driven to cannibalism, Dirk Peters having slain one unfortunate companion upon whom the death lot had fallen. Pym and the halfbreed were...« less
I read this book because I had never read it and it is a famous book written by a famous author. I enjoyed it even though I had trouble with the european context a bit.
The description for this book is wrong. For whatever reason people just keep copying and pasteing descriptions from amazon without even reading what they say. This copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas is an easy to read Little Unicorn Classic Series. There are lots of pictures that are very nice and would be a cute version for a younger child. This book has been edited a whole lot.