The Mysterious Island

This adventure story is so far from our 21st century life. It takes you back in time when honorable people worked together using their ingenuity to survive 5 years on a remote island in the South Pacific. I liked how they solved each obstacle. The story was slow at times, yet I had to finish it. The orangatan Jup and the dog ,Top, added a nice touch to the story.

Jules Verne wrote a great book. He also was well verst in the sciences of engineering and chemistry. A really great read.

Quarantined in a social island by the pandemic this book, with their isolated protagonists, has been by chance my cherished company. If you have read Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" there is more or less the same idea: the arrival to a primitive world where you have to try to redo your level of civilization from nothing. But where Twain, in my opinion, has an undefined and lukewarm book, Verne instead creates a titanic adventure in a mysterious island. Seems to me that the creators of the tv series Lost drew much inspiration from this book. You have the past and guilt, the supernatural presence looming, and the technological experiments; all so thrilling and rich in details. This book is linked to other books authored by Verne, but being his universe part of the popular culture I don't think you need his other books to understand the references, you already know them from books, cartoons and movies.Although I felt the story maybe a tad too professional, in the sense that you will notice similar narrative elements in other works by Verne, some scientific data that of course are set more for the plot than for realism, and the revelation is a bit expected; actually none of those details discouraged me to have in high regard this very entertaining book. The reason I don't qualify it with five stars is the elephant in the room: how can be possible that persons of extraordinary skills got caught as prisoners of war by simple soldiers?...About the Edition: AmazonClassics has an excellent quality, you have the important X-Ray to check characters and definition of many creatures, a clean and professional formatting with a modern typography that makes for a comfortable reading. Nevertheless for works from non English speaking authors AmazonClassics choose translations that are as well in the public domain. The translator makes a good job but seems strange that Verne doesn't use the metric system, and in a couple of parts it seems the translator misattributes the dialogue of characters. Minor details anyway, happy to recommend this classic by a great author.

A favorite book from.the past, unabridged unlike my other copy. A delightful tale, sort from the racially tainted character of Neb. However, I bought the book primarily to obtain the original illustrations-- that it was said to contain-- but, alas, did not!

This was my sixth Verne novel. It is the best! Certainly educational. Absolutely beautiful. Inspiring. And more exciting than I dreamed possible. To me, this is his best!

A definite read for anyone, the style of writing, the compassion of the colonists, their love and reliance for one another. And the universal reliance on our lord God to get them threw all the trials they endured. A truly believable story that will also help you to understand the proper way to treat others, which unfortunately seems to be fading in our current society.

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne is a story of the escape of five prisoners in a hot air balloon. The prisoners are all Union men being held by the Confederacy in Richmond. After they escape in the balloon, they get caught in a great storm and are wrecked on an unknown island in the Pacific Ocean. They start with absolutely nothing, but they manage to build a comfortable life with their knowledge. The members include an engineer, his servant, a journalist, a sailor, and a boy. The engineer is the main hero. It is his knowledge which helps the party to build their perfect little world. Without him, the party would probably perish. The sailor serves as comic relief. He is always making funny remarks. Basically they enjoy their life on the island, but they face some crises, and receive help from a mysterious source. As the book progresses, the mysterious coincidences build up.This is a good book for survival fans. It's interesting to see how they are able to build their mini civilization from nothing. If you're not interested in island survival though, you may get bored with the details on how to make a pottery kiln, or building a blacksmith's forge, or the search for edible plants. One point I didn't like very much was the character of the servant. As an African-american, he's a little too subservient--a kind of Uncle Tom type who lives to serve his master. That's really out-of-date now, which is why this is not one of Vernes better works. If you haven't read any of Verne's works, I recommend 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Journey to the Moon instead. If you've read a lot of Verne, this is a solid book, but not his best.

I enjoyed this story immensely. It was good to read about nice things being brought about by hard working righteous people.

I've read this book before, but this version of it is really messed up. About halfway through, the sentences start having words all mixed up and out of order, other words substituted where they shouldn't be (for example, instead of 'about' the word 'approximately' is used in sentences where it makes no sense). I don't know if the translator was having a bad day, or if they change over to kindle version went through some kind of auto-program, but It's bad. There were entire pages that made no sense. I actually wondered if I was having a stroke.

excellent

It is complete garbage.The sentences are all mixed up and is completely unreadable.How can I get my money back!!!One star for this scammy version, not for the original writing.

The words aren't simple but a 7 year old can read it . also let's you buy a dictionary!Cool book

The characters start from scratch on an island and build up their resources and shelter, it's like reading minecraft! It's an enjoyable read and the details make me feel like I'm there with them.Recommend that you read 20k leagues under the sea first.