The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island is Jules Verne's adventure novel about a group escaping the American Civil War by balloon and becoming stranded on an uncharted island. Led by the engineer Cyrus Smith, the castaways use observation, practical knowledge and cooperative labor to construct shelter and produce necessities. Their apparent self-sufficiency is complicated by unexplained acts of assistance. These mysteries eventually connect the island to Captain Nemo and the wider world of Verne's fiction. Detailed accounts of tools, materials and environmental resources give the settlement its distinctive texture, while friendship and mutual responsibility sustain the group through danger.