The Mysterious Island

Brief Overview

The Mysterious Island is an adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1875. It tells the story of a group of people who escape from besieged Richmond, Virginia, in a hot air balloon during the American Civil War and find themselves on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. The five survivors—engineer Cyrus Smith, journalist Gideon Spilett, sailor Pencroff, young naturalist Herbert, and former slave Nab—use their knowledge and skills to build a new life from what they have, constructing a home, cultivating plants, and even creating elements of civilization. Over time, they discover that the island exhibits signs of mysterious phenomena and intervention: objects and animals are saved from peril, random fires extinguish themselves, and the heroes' enemies are mystically defeated. Ultimately, they encounter Captain Nemo, a character from another of Verne's famous novels, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, who has secretly been aiding them throughout their adventure on the island. The novel concludes tragically for Nemo, but the survivors are given a chance at rescue.