From Publishers Weekly
Fans of
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and
Around the World in Eighty Days may find this work from Verne (1828–1905) austere. In 1859, three sailors arrive on an isolated island to man a new lighthouse at the wreck-prone tippy tip of South America. They soon discover a band of egregious criminals, led by dangerous evildoer Kongre, who have been tricking ships into running aground, killing the survivors and taking the loot. When two lighthouse men go to assist a ship and are killed, serious trouble ensues. Characters are cardboard; the action slight, though violent; the plot simple; and the encounter between decency and evil on an island one-dimensional. Posthumously published in 1905, the book was translated into English in 1923, but this is the first English translation from Verne's original manuscript.
(Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"[W]e're in the midst of a Verne renaissance brought on by new manuscripts, improved translations, and scholarly reassessments. . . . Thanks to efforts such as Mr. Butcher's . . . it's now possible for the rest of us to see Verne more clearly than ever before.”—John J. Miller, Wall Street Journal
(John J. Miller
Wall Street Journal 20070916)
"Lighthouse at the End of the World might be best read under the covers, after bedtime, by flashlight. It is a wondrous, old-fashioned adventure story, likely to bring out the little boy, the castaway, the pirate and the lighthouse-keeper in every reader."—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review
(Susan Salter Reynolds
Los Angeles Times Book Review 20070923)
“It’s a cracking good novel, and William Butcher’s commentary is superb.”—SFRA Review
(
SFRA Review 20080526)
“William Butcher’s text has an easy, graceful rhythm; it preserves the allusive complexity of the original prose.” —Michael Crichton
(Michael Crichton 20070402)
“A lively modern translation of one of Verne’s tensest, tautest thrillers, a lean, ferocious, breakneck yarn readers will devour in a single evening. William Butcher renders action scenes with great color and dash, dialogues with sparkling fluency. . . . His research, commentaries, and analyses are riveting new contributions to our understanding of this Protean novelist. Outstanding entertainment, admirable scholarship.”—Frederick Paul Walter, Verne translator and specialist
(Frederick Paul Walter 20070402)
“This book is a psychological thriller. . . . Butcher’s translation is thankfully the inverse of his last name, preserving Verne’s voice: concise and clear scenes that follow a compelling narrative, a prose that may be old-fashioned but with many hints of elegance. For long-time fans of Verne’s work, Butcher has also strengthened the text with supplemental research, literary analysis on word choice and an introduction showing how the book fits into the Verne canon. . . . Lighthouse is yet another reminder that here is an author who has stood the test of time.”—BookReview.com.
(
BookReview.com 20080616)
