Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (Oxford World's Classics)

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For those of us of a certain age, not that we lived in the 19th Century, the name Jules Verne always conjures unforgettable images of people, places and things that remain indelibly etched in the mind long, long after we've turned the last page. Jules Verne is an endless adventure; we end one, then start another and another, until we realize that we've virtually traveled to almost every place on this planet and the heavenly bodies that surround it. The fifth of his magnificent Extraordinary Voyages, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is a breathtaking novel set in the frigid regions of the Arctic Circle and the North Pole itself, though we know now that finding an active volcano there strains credulity. It was widely believed at the time that there was an opening at the top of the world which led to the very depths of the earth. A concept that inspired Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. And Captain Hatteras is Jules Verne at his prime, at his most imaginative stage, at his thrilling best. Its plot is simple yet intriguing: In Liverpool, a seaman named Richard Shandon, First Mate, receives an anonymous letter asking him to construct a reinforced ship and assemble a reliable crew for a rough voyage to the Northern regions of North America, and everyone, Hatteras promises, will be richly rewarded. Once up in the Arctic labyrinth one of the crewman reveals himself as Captain John Hatteras, and his mission is to be the first man to reach the North Pole. So off they go into one of the most horrendous adventures imaginable, even by today's standards.
These are just a few of the images alluded to above: sailing and trekking through sub-zero temperatures amid gigantic icebergs; cutting wind; mutiny; near starvation; bold huskies; sudden storms; castaways wintering in an ice house; a floating iceberg packed with ravenous polar bears about to leap down onto the ship and devour the bold explorers, and a breathless ending to satisfy the fastidious reader. This Oxford University Press edition is a new translation with an introduction and notes by the Jules Verne scholar William Butcher, giving this particular Verne work all the attention and justice it merits.

With perhaps the exception of "Paris in the 20th century", all and one of Jules Verne are simply fascinating.

This review is for the Kindle formatting, not for the novel itself. Unfortunately the publisher has decided that the author should be alphabetized on the Kindle by his first name instead of his last name. Most of the Western world prefers to list authors by last name, but this publisher must be trying out something new. This is true for many Oxford Kindle books. Whoever is entering these things into the Kindle doesn't appear to know the difference between first and last names. So I have some Verne under Verne, and I have some other Verne under Jules.