Godfrey Morgan

Kolderup, the millionaire, has indulged himself in every other whim available to him, at home in America -- but now he has gone the limit: for he has purchased an entire island, a veritable paradise in the Pacific -- and with this outrageous purchase he has had the special pleasure of having outbid a certain enemy of his. As it happens, Kolderup's nephew, Godfrey, has a craze for traveling -- and he is also the most avid "reader" of castaway stories . . . And as it further happens, the father of science fiction, Jules Verne, was an avid "writer" of castaway stories. While the greatest of them is "The Mysterious Island," the most playful and diverting may be this light-hearted fantasy of staged shipwrecks, cold-hearted competition, and elaborate plans for ruin and revenge -- featuring dangerous, uncaged wild beasts. Originally published in 1882 as "L'Ecole des Robinsons," the novel "Godfrey Morgan" will come as a delightful surprise to those only acquainted with Verne's imaginary journeys deep into the Earth, or into outer space.