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Tarzan of the Apes is a 1912 novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first in a series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was first published in the pulp magazine The All-Story in October 1912 before being released a book in 1914.The story follows Tarzan's adventures, from his childhood being raised by apes in the jungle to his eventual encounters with other humans and Western society. So popular was the character that Burroughs continued the series into the 1940s with two dozen sequels.Scholars have noted several important themes in the novel: the impact of heredity on behavior; racial superiority; civilization, especially as Tarzan struggles with his identity as a human; sexuality; and escapism. (wikipedia.org)

The Son of Tarzan is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was written between January 21 and May 11, 1915, and first published in the magazine All-Story Weekly as a six-part serial from December 4, 1915 to January 8, 1916. It was first published in book form by A. C. McClurg & Co. in March 1917 and has been reprinted numerous times since by various publishers. In this novel, for the first and only time in the Tarzan series, the main character is not Tarzan himself but his son Jack, who becomes known as Korak, first introduced (as a baby) in the earlier novels The Eternal Lover (1914/15) and The Beasts of Tarzan (1914). Korak would return as a supporting character in the later novels Tarzan the Terrible (1921), Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1922/23) and Tarzan and the Ant Men (1924).The story begins 10 years after the conclusion of The Beasts of Tarzan. During the past decade, Alexis Paulvitch, who had escaped Tarzan at the end of the last novel, has lived a hideous life of abuse and disease among tribal people in Africa. Now he is discovered by a European ship and taken aboard. In the months that follows, Paulvitch encounters the ape, Akut, (whom Tarzan had befriended in that previous story) at one of the ship's stops. Because of Akut's interactions with Tarzan, he is unafraid of white men, and Paulvitch, unaware of the previous relationship, sees an opportunity to make some money. He takes Akut to London and begins displaying him publicly.After the trauma of the kidnappings ten years earlier, Jane has refused to return to Africa or to allow Jack to know anything about his father's past for fear that he might somehow try to relive it. Perhaps she instinctively knew that Jack was somehow very connected to Tarzan's old life, for Jack did have an avid interest in wildlife and he was extremely athletic. When the Claytons hear about the displayed ape, they forbid Jack from going to see it. But he sneaks off and does so anyway. John Clayton follows his son and is surprised to find the ape is his old friend, Akut, and begins conversing with him. Jack is amazed to see that his father could do so. John then tells Jack of his life as Tarzan.Jack continues sneaking away to see Akut and begins to learn the language of the apes. Jack forms a plan to take Akut back to the jungle. Paulvitch, seeing an opportunity for revenge against Tarzan, agrees to help Jack. They escape to an African port where Paulvitch attacks Jack. Akut kills Paulvitch, and Jack, terrified, escapes into the jungle with him, thinking he will have to run for the rest of his life.Like Tarzan before him, Jack learns survival in the jungle and encounters the Mangani apes, who he can speak with because of his dialogue with Akut. Akut has difficulty pronouncing the name "Jack" and names him Korak, which means "killer" which seems appropriate since Jack has proven himself to be such.Jack finds an abused girl of about 11 named Meriem and rescues her. He begins teaching her to survive the jungle and they begin a sibling type relationship and live adventurously in the jungle for several years.In the interim, Tarzan and Jane have begun living at their Waziri estate in Africa again, not having any idea what became of their son. After about six years, Tarzan and Jane reunite with Korak (now about 18) and Meriem (now 16) and return to London where Korak and Meriem are married. (wikipedia.org)

Tarzan and the Golden Lion is an adventure novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the ninth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was first published as a seven part serial in Argosy All-Story Weekly beginning in December 1922; and then as a complete novel by A.C. McClurg & Co. on March 24, 1923. The story picks up with the Clayton family, Tarzan, Jane Porter and their son Korak, returning from their adventures in the previous novel (#8). Along the way they find an orphaned lion cub, which Tarzan takes home and trains.Flora Hawkes, a previous housemaid of the Clayton's had overheard of Tarzan's discovery of the treasure chamber in the lost city of Opar (from The Return of Tarzan and Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar) and had managed to copy his map to it. She concocted a plan to lead an expedition to collect the gold. As a contingency to discourage any local denizens from questioning them, she sought out and found a Tarzan look-alike named Esteban Miranda to accompany them.Two years passed since the Clayton family picked up their lion cub, making the year around 1935 and Tarzan would have been about 47 years old. His Greystoke estate had become financially depleted due his support of the Allies war efforts and he concluded it was time to return to Opar for another withdrawal.Tarzan encountered Hawkes' party, where he was drugged and ended up in the hands of the Oparians. Queen La, who had come into disfavor with the high priest, felt she had nothing to lose by escaping with Tarzan through the only unguarded route-a path to the legendary valley of diamonds, from which no one had ever returned. There, Tarzan found a race of humans who were little better than animals in intelligence, being enslaved by a race of intelligent gorillas. With the help of his golden lion Jad-bal-ja, Tarzan used the natives to restore La to power. Before leaving he accepted a bag of diamonds for a reward.Meanwhile, Esteban Miranda convinced Tarzan's Waziri party to take the gold from Hawkes' party while most of them were out hunting. He then buried the gold so he could retain it later. The real Tarzan eventually confronted the imposter, who managed to pilfer Tarzan's bag of diamonds. Esteban Miranda was then chased by Jad-balja, but escaped into a river. Esteban Miranda was later captured and permanently imprisoned by a local tribe. Tarzan lost the diamonds, but was able to attain the gold and return with it. (wikipedia.org)

Jungle Tales of Tarzan is a collection of twelve loosely connected short stories by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, comprising the sixth book in order of publication in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. Chronologically the events recounted in it occur within Chapter 11 of the first Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes, between Tarzan's avenging of his ape foster mother's death and his becoming leader of his ape tribe. The stories ran monthly in Blue Book magazine, September 1916 through August 1917 before book publication in 1919. Erling B. Holtsmark explores these stories topically in Tarzan and Tradition along with the first five Tarzan novels. The book is indexed to provide help in locating the commentary on each story.Stan Galloway's The Teenage Tarzan: A Literary Analysis of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jungle Tales of Tarzan provides the first extended study of this collection of short stories. The Teenage Tarzan explores each story, usually in the order of composition, with references to Tarzan of the Apes and other books written by Burroughs. The study includes reference to other media as well, where Tarzan is a character, and a particular interest in literary symbols at work in the stories. Galloway's book also contains a useful index.Both Holtsmark and Galloway approach the stories seriously and positively, providing a counter to a largely dismissive earlier reception. (wikipedia.org)

At the Earth's Core is a 1914 fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first in his series about the fictional "hollow earth" land of Pellucidar. It first appeared as a four-part serial in All-Story Weekly from April 4-25, 1914. It was first published in book form in hardcover by A. C. McClurg in July, 1922. Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale, discussing the 1962 paperback edition, praised the novel; he said that "Burroughs's concepts are intriguing and his combat scenes gripping." Gale faulted the novel's style, noting that "the reader must wade at least twenty-five pages into the book before he can cease to be annoyed by the author's stilted and florid style", but promised that "by then he has reached the point of no return". The novel was filmed as At the Earth's Core (1976), directed by Kevin Connor and starring Doug McClure as David Innes and Peter Cushing as Abner Perry.When DC Comics gained the license to adapt the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, they managed to adapt the first Pellucidar book, with Len Wein scripting, and various artists such as Mike Kaluta and Murphy Anderson on art. The adaptation started out Korak, Son of Tarzan #46, then moved to Weird Worlds, where it ran from #1-6.The 2008 movie Journey to Middle Earth also shares several similarities with the events and locations of the novel, although the film was intended as a loose adaptation of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Other authors have been inspired by Burroughs' depiction of the strange subterranean world, most notably H.P. Lovecraft whose At the Mountains of Madness was heavily influenced by At the Earth's Core, particularly in the name of the Elder Things' slave race, the Shoggoths. Another and more direct homage to Burroughs' concept is Lin Carter's "Zanthodon" series, beginning with his novel Journey to the Underground World.Prolific manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori also loosely adapted the book for the final story arc of the original Cyborg 009 manga. (wikipedia.org)

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fifth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It first appeared in the November and December issues of All-Story Cavalier Weekly in 1916, and the first book publication was by McClurg in 1918. Tarzan returns to Opar, the source of the gold where a lost colony of fabled Atlantis is located, in order to make good on some financial reverses he has recently suffered. While Atlantis itself sank beneath the waves thousands of years ago, the workers of Opar continued to mine all of the gold, which means there is a rather huge stockpile but which is now lost to the memory of the Oparians and only Tarzan knows its secret location.A greedy, outlawed Belgian army officer, Albert Werper, in the employ of a criminal Arab, secretly follows Tarzan to Opar. There, Tarzan loses his memory after being struck on the head by a falling rock in the treasure room during an earthquake. On encountering La, the high priestess who is the servant of the Flaming God of Opar, and who is also very beautiful, Tarzan once again rejects her love which enrages her and she tries to have him killed; she had fallen in love with the apeman during their first encounter and La and her high priests are not going to allow Tarzan to escape their sacrificial knives this time.In the meanwhile, Jane has been kidnapped by the Arab and wonders what is keeping her husband from once again coming to her rescue. A now amnesiac Tarzan and Werper escape from Opar, bearing away the sacrificial knife of Opar which La and some retainers set out to recover. There is intrigue and counter intrigue the rest of the way. (wikipedia.org)

The Surgeon's Daughter is part of Chronicles of the Canongate which is a collection of stories by Sir Walter Scott, published in 1827 and 1828 in the Waverley novels series. They are named after the Canongate, in Edinburgh. After his financial ruin at the beginning of 1826, Scott committed himself to writing works that would produce funds for the Trustees of James Ballantyne & Co., including the massive Life of Napoleon. However, he retained the right to produce less substantial works for his own benefit, and the first result was the collection of shorter fiction known as Chronicles of the Canongate. This was in two volumes, rather than the three occupied by most of the Waverley Novels, and its disparate nature meant that it would not interfere with his official writing project. The first mention of the two-volume publication actually envisages it being totally occupied by the tale which was to be entitled The Surgeon's Daughter: in his diary for 12 May 1826 Robert Cadell records a proposal from Scott to write 'a small Eastern Tale', which he agreed to publish as part of his strategy to set up as an independent publisher after the crash which had ruined Archibald Constable, Ballantyne, Scott, and himself. In the event The Surgeon's Daughter was to share the two volumes of the first series of Chronicles of the Canongate with 'Chrystal Croftangry's Narrative' and two short stories, 'The Highland Widow' and 'The Two Drovers'. The 'Narrative' and more than half of 'The Highland Widow' were composed between May and July 1826, but for almost a year Scott then devoted his full energies to the Life of Napoleon which he finished on 7 June 1827. He apparently resumed 'The Highland Widow' on the 20th and finished it before the end of the month, as well as writing an Introduction in his own name (he had officially acknowledged his authorship of the Waverley novels on 23 February). 'The Two Drovers' was probably composed in the first half of July, completing the first volume, but while he was waiting at the end of June to find out how long that story needed to be, he had already begun The Surgeon's Daughter, the sole occupant of the second volume, resuming it on 27 July and completing it on 16 September. (wikipedia.org)

One of the Waverley Novels by Walter Scott, The Black Dwarf was part of his Tales of My Landlord, 1st series (1816). It is set in 1708, in the Scottish Borders, against the background of the first uprising to be attempted by the Jacobites after the Act of Union. On 30 April 1816 Scott signed a contract with William Blackwood for a four-volume work of fiction, and on 22 August James Ballantyne, Scott's printer and partner, indicated to Blackwood that it was to be entitled Tales of My Landlord which was planned to consist of four tales relating to four regions of Scotland. In the event the second tale, Old Mortality, expanded to take up the final three volumes, leaving The Black Dwarf as the only story to appear exactly as intended. It is not clear precisely when Scott began composition, but the tale was complete before the end of August.For the historical background Scott was particularly indebted to two books: Memoirs Concerning the Affairs of Scotland by George Lockhart of Carnwath (1714), and The History of the Late Rebellion by Robert Patten (1717). He also drew extensively on the ballads he had edited in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-03). The story is set just after the Union of Scotland and England (1707), in the Liddesdale hills of the Scottish Borders, familiar to Scott from his work collecting ballads for Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The main character is based on David Ritchie, whom Scott met in the autumn of 1797. In the tale, the dwarf is Sir Edward Mauley, a hermit regarded by the locals as being in league with the Devil, who becomes embroiled in a complex tale of love, revenge, betrayal, Jacobite schemes and a threatened forced marriage. Scott began the novel well, "but tired of the ground I had trode so often before... I quarrelled with my story, & bungled up a conclusion."The introduction to The Black Dwarf attributes the work to Jedediah Cleishbotham, whom Scott had invented as a fictional editor of the Landlord series. It is here that we have the most complete view of this character. (wikipedia.org)

Facing the Flag or For the Flag (French: Face au drapeau) is an 1896 patriotic novel by Jules Verne. The book is part of the Voyages extraordinaires series.Like The Begum's Millions, which Verne published in 1879, it has the theme of France and the entire world threatened by a super-weapon with the threat finally overcome through the force of French patriotism.It can be considered one of the first books dealing with problems which were to become paramount half a century after its publication in World War II and the Cold War: brilliant scientists discovering new weapons of great destructive power, whose full utilization might literally destroy the world; the competition between superpowers to obtain overwhelming stockpiles of such weapons; and, efforts of other nations to join the nuclear club. (wikipedia.org)

The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (French: Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne in two parts: The English at the North Pole (French: Les Anglais au pôle nord) and The desert of ice (French: Le Désert de glace).The novel was published for the first time in 1864. The definitive version from 1866 was included into Voyages Extraordinaires series (The Extraordinary Voyages). Although it was the first book of the series it was labeled as number two. Three of Verne's books from 1863-65 (Five Weeks in a Balloon, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon) were added into the series retroactively. Captain Hatteras shows many similarities with British explorer John Franklin. The novel, set in 1861, described adventures of British expedition led by Captain John Hatteras to the North Pole. Hatteras is convinced that the sea around the pole is not frozen and his obsession is to reach the place no matter what. Mutiny by the crew results in destruction of their ship but Hatteras, with a few men, continues on the expedition. On the shore of the island of "New America" he discovers the remains of a ship used by the previous expedition from the United States. Doctor Clawbonny recalls in mind the plan of the real Ice palace, constructed completely from ice in Russia in 1740 to build a snow-house, where they should spend a winter. The travellers winter on the island and survive mainly due to the ingenuity of Doctor Clawbonny (who is able to make fire with an ice lens, make bullets from frozen mercury and repel attacks by polar bears with remotely controlled explosions of black powder).When the winter ends the sea becomes ice-free. The travellers build a boat from the shipwreck and head towards the pole. Here they discover an island, an active volcano, and name it after Hatteras. With difficulty a fjord is found and the group get ashore. After three hours climbing they reach the mouth of the volcano. The exact location of the pole is in the crater and Hatteras jumps into it. As the sequence was originally written, Hatteras perishes in the crater; Verne's editor, Jules Hetzel, suggested or rather required that Verne do a rewrite so that Hatteras survives but is driven insane by the intensity of the experience, and after return to England he is put into an asylum for the insane. Losing his "soul" in the cavern of the North Pole, Hatteras never speaks another word. He spends the remainder of his days walking the streets surrounding the asylum with his faithful dog Duke. While mute and deaf to the world, Hatteras' walks are not without a direction. As indicated by the last line "Captain Hatteras forever marches northward". (wikipedia.org)

Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 - 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright.Verne's collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).Verne is generally considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation is markedly different in Anglophone regions, where he has often been labeled a writer of genre fiction or children's books, largely because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels have often been printed.Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking between Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare. He has sometimes been called the "Father of Science Fiction", a title that has also been given to H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Hugo Gernsback.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: A Tour of the Underwater World (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A Tour of the Underwater World") was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's periodical, the Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation. The deluxe illustrated edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. The book was highly acclaimed when it was released and remains so; it is regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The description of Nemo's ship, the Nautilus, was considered ahead of its time, as it accurately describes features on submarines, which at the time were very primitive vessels.A model of the French submarine Plongeur (launched in 1863) was displayed at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, where it was studied by Jules Verne, who used it as an inspiration for the novel. (wikipedia.org)

L'Épave du Cynthia = Salvage from the Cynthis, Jules Verne. The plot revolved around a dark-haired boy called Erik in a family of blond Norwegians. He was discovered by them in the sea as a baby tied to a ship's buoy. There is however something wrong with him: he has not all the characteristic physical traits of the Scandinavian peoples. He has all the appearance of a Celtic. Dr. Schwaryencrona takes him under his wing and ends up discovering that Erik was adopted by a family of Norwegian fishermen, after being saved from the sinking of Cynthia when he was only a few months old. Once big, with the help of the Doctor, Erik will seek to elucidate the mystery of the sinking of Cynthia to find a trace of its origins. This quest will take him across the polar ice to Siberia ... (Ahmad Sharabiani)

Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery (French: L'École des Robinsons, literally The School for Robinsons), also published as School for Crusoes, is an 1882 adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne. The novel tells of a wealthy young man, Godfrey Morgan who, with his deportment instructor, Professor T. Artelett, embark from San Francisco, California on a round-the-world ocean voyage. They are cast away on an uninhabited Pacific island where they must endure a series of adversities. Later they encounter an African slave, Carefinotu, brought to the island by cannibals. In the end, the trio manage to work together and survive on the island.The novel is a robinsonade-a play on Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. The narrative begins with the auction by the US Government of fictional Spencer Island, located 460 miles off the California coast (32°15′N 145°18′W). The island is uninhabited and there are only two bidders, William W. Kolderup, a very wealthy San Franciscan, and his arch-rival J. R. Taskinar, a resident of Stockton, California. Kolderup wins the auction, buying Spencer Island for four million dollars. J. R. Taskinar mutters, "I will be avenged!" before retiring to his hotel.Godfrey, an idle twenty-two-year-old, lives with Kolderup, his uncle, and Kolderup's adopted goddaughter, Phina, whom Godfrey has grown to love. Prior to marrying Phina, Godfrey asks to undertake a world tour. Acceding to his desire, his uncle sends Godfrey on a sea voyage around the world on board one of his steamships, the Dream, commanded by Captain Turcott. Godfrey is accompanied by his mentor, teacher, and dance instructor, Professor T. Artelett aka "Tartlet".After some time at sea, Godfrey is awakened one foggy night and told to abandon ship as the Dream is foundering. After jumping into the sea, Godfrey is washed ashore on a deserted island, where he soon finds Tartlet has also been marooned. Godfrey, with scant help from Tartlet, will have to learn to survive, to organize his life, face hostile intruders, and overcome other obstacles. Eventually, they are also joined by Carefinotu, whom Godfrey rescues him from the Polynesians warriors visiting the island. By the end of the story the formerly jaded young man has discovered the value of independent effort, and he gains poise and courage. The marooned group are rescued and returned to San Francisco, where Godfrey is reunited with Phina. They agree to marry before continuing the world tour, this time together.Although the setting is different, the robinsonade plot is a variation on the theme of rational self-sufficiency that Verne developed earlier in The Mysterious Island (1874). At the time of publication, it was common for a young man of wealth to undertake travel as an educational rite of passage, for example the California heir Leland Stanford, Jr. who took two European Grand Tours, one in 1880-81, and died on the second in 1884. The original French version of Verne's novel was published in 1882, after Stanford's first tour. (wikipedia.org)

Claudius Bombarnac (The Adventures of a Special Correspondent) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne. Claudius Bombarnac, a reporter is assigned by the Twentieth Century to cover the travels of the Grand Transasiatic Railway which runs between Uzun Ada, a harbour on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, and Peking, China. Accompanying him on this journey is an interesting collection of characters, including one who is trying to beat the round the world record and another who is a stowaway. Claudius hopes one of them will become the hero of his piece, so his story won't be just a boring travelogue. He is not disappointed when a special car guarded by troops is added to the train, said to be carrying the remains of a great Mandarin. The great Mandarin actually turns out to be a large consignment being returned to China from Persia. Unfortunately the train must travel through a large part of China that is controlled by unscrupulous robber-chiefs. Before the journey is over, Claudius finds his hero. (wikipedia.org)

The Secret of the Island was another of the series of Voyages Extraordinaires which ran through a famous Paris magazine for younger readers, the Magasin Illustré. It formed the third and completing part of the Mysterious Island set of tales of adventure. We may count it, taken separately, as next to Robinson Crusoe and possibly Treasure Island, the best read and the best appreciated book in all that large group of island-tales and sea-stories to which it belongs. It gained its vogue immediately in France, Great Britain, and overseas besides being translated, with more or less despatch, into other European tongues. M. Jules Verne must indeed have gained enough by it and its two connective tales to have acquired an island of his own.

Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 - 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright.Verne's collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).Verne is generally considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation is markedly different in Anglophone regions, where he has often been labeled a writer of genre fiction or children's books, largely because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels have often been printed.Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking between Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare. He has sometimes been called the "Father of Science Fiction", a title that has also been given to H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Hugo Gernsback.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: A Tour of the Underwater World (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A Tour of the Underwater World") was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's periodical, the Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation. The deluxe illustrated edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. The book was highly acclaimed when it was released and remains so; it is regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The description of Nemo's ship, the Nautilus, was considered ahead of its time, as it accurately describes features on submarines, which at the time were very primitive vessels.A model of the French submarine Plongeur (launched in 1863) was displayed at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, where it was studied by Jules Verne, who used it as an inspiration for the novel. (wikipedia.org)

Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar (French: Michel Strogoff) is a novel written by Jules Verne in 1876. Critics, including Leonard S. Davidow, consider it one of Verne's best books. Davidow wrote, "Jules Verne has written no better book than this, in fact it is deservedly ranked as one of the most thrilling tales ever written." Unlike some of Verne's other novels, it is not science fiction, but a scientific phenomenon (Leidenfrost effect) is a plot device. The book was later adapted to a play, by Verne himself and Adolphe d'Ennery. Incidental music to the play was written by Alexandre Artus in 1880. The book has been adapted several times for films, television and cartoon series Michael Strogoff, a 30-year-old native of Omsk, is a courier for Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Tartar Khan (prince), Feofar Khan, incites a rebellion and separates the Russian Far East from the mainland, severing telegraph lines. Rebels encircle Irkutsk, where the local governor, a brother of the Tsar, is making a last stand. Strogoff is sent to Irkutsk to warn the governor about the traitor Ivan Ogareff, a former colonel, who was once demoted and exiled and now seeks revenge against the imperial family. He intends to gain the governor's trust and then betray him to the Tartar hordes. On his way to Irkutsk, Strogoff meets Nadia Fedor, daughter of an exiled political prisoner, Basil Fedor, who has been granted permission to join her father at his exile in Irkutsk; the English war correspondent Harry Blount of the Daily Telegraph; and Alcide Jolivet, a Frenchman reporting for his 'cousin Madeleine'. Blount and Jolivet tend to follow the same route as Michael, separating and meeting again all the way through Siberia. He is supposed to travel under a false identity, posing as the pacific merchant Nicolas Korpanoff, but he is discovered by the Tartars when he meets his mother in their home city of Omsk.Michael, his mother and Nadia are eventually captured by the Tartar forces, along with thousands of other Russians, during the storming of a city in the Ob basin. The Tartars do not know Strogoff by sight, but Ogareff is aware of the courier's mission and when he is told that Strogoff's mother spotted her son in the crowd and called his name, but received no reply, he understands that Strogoff is among the captured and devises a scheme to force the mother to indicate him. Strogoff is indeed caught and handed over to the Tartars, and Ogareff alleges that Michael is a spy, hoping to have him put to death in some cruel way. After opening the Koran at random, Feofar decides that Michael will be blinded as punishment in the Tartar fashion, with a glowing hot blade. For several chapters the reader is led to believe that Michael was indeed blinded, but it transpires in fact that he was saved from this fate (his tears at his mother evaporated and saved his corneas) and was only pretending.Eventually, Michael and Nadia escape, and travel to Irkutsk with a friendly peasant, Nicolas Pigassof. They are recaptured by the Tartars; Nicolas witnesses Nadia being raped by a Tartar soldier and murders Nadia's assaulter. The Tartars then abandon Nadia and Michael and carry Nicolas away, reserving him for a greater punishment. Nadia and Michael later discover him buried up to his neck in the ground. They continue onwards where they are delayed by fire and the frozen river. However, they eventually reach Irkutsk, and warn the Tsar's brother in time of Ivan Ogareff. Nadia's father, who has been appointed commander of a suicide battalion and later pardoned, joins them and Michael and Nadia are married. (wikipedia.org)

The Castaways of the Flag (French: Seconde patrie, lit. Second Fatherland, 1900) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne. The two volumes of the novel were initially published in English translation as two separate volumes: Their Island Home and The Castaways of the Flag. Later reprints were published as The Castaways of the Flag.The story is a sequel to the 1812 book The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss, picking up where that novel leaves off. (wikipedia.org)

"A Winter amid the Ice" (French: Un hivernage dans les glaces) is an 1855 short adventure story by Jules Verne.The story was first printed in April-May 1855 in the magazine Musée des familles. It was later reprinted by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in the collection Doctor Ox (1874), as part of the Voyages Extraordinaires series. Three English translations ("A Winter amid the Ice" by George Makepeace Towle, "A Winter Among the Ice-Fields" by Abby L. Alger, and "A Winter's Sojourn in the Ice" by Stephen William White) were published in 1874. (wikipedia.org)

Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 - 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright.Verne's collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).Verne is generally considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation is markedly different in Anglophone regions, where he has often been labeled a writer of genre fiction or children's books, largely because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels have often been printed.Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking between Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare. He has sometimes been called the "Father of Science Fiction", a title that has also been given to H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Hugo Gernsback.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: A Tour of the Underwater World (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A Tour of the Underwater World") was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's periodical, the Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation. The deluxe illustrated edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. The book was highly acclaimed when it was released and remains so; it is regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The description of Nemo's ship, the Nautilus, was considered ahead of its time, as it accurately describes features on submarines, which at the time were very primitive vessels.A model of the French submarine Plongeur (launched in 1863) was displayed at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, where it was studied by Jules Verne, who used it as an inspiration for the novel. (wikipedia.org)

An Antarctic Mystery (French: Le Sphinx des glaces, The Sphinx of the Ice Fields) is a two-volume novel by Jules Verne. Written in 1897, it is a response to Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It follows the adventures of the narrator and his journey from the Kerguelen Islands aboard Halbrane.Neither Poe nor Verne had actually visited the remote Kerguelen Islands, located in the south Indian Ocean, but their works are some of the few literary (as opposed to exploratory) references to the archipelago. (wikipedia.org)

[Sequel to Mysterious Island trilogy.] The Mysterious Island (French: L'Île mystérieuse) is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1875. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and In Search of the Castaways (1867-68), though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, initially rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned with Uncle Robinson, seen as indicating the influence of the novels Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. Verne developed a similar theme in his later novel, Godfrey Morgan (French: L'École des Robinsons, 1882). (wikipedia.org)

Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, A Journey of Discovery by Three Englishmen in Africa (French: Cinq semaines en ballon) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne, published in 1863. It is the first novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a story line full of adventure and plot twists that keep the reader's interest through passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets.Public interest in fanciful tales of African exploration was at its height, and the novel was an instant hit; it made Verne financially independent and led to long-term contracts with Pierre-Jules Hetzel's publishing house, which put out some sixty more books of his over the next four decades. (wikipedia.org)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated with the variant titles A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and A Journey into the Interior of the Earth), is a classic science fiction novel by Jules Verne. It was first published in French in 1864, then reissued in 1867 in a revised and expanded edition. Professor Otto Lidenbrock is the tale's central figure, an eccentric German scientist who believes there are volcanic tubes that reach to the very center of the earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their Icelandic guide Hans rappel into Iceland's celebrated inactive volcano Snæfellsjökull, then contend with many dangers, including cave-ins, subpolar tornadoes, an underground ocean, and living prehistoric creatures from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. (The 1867 revised edition inserted additional prehistoric material in Chaps. 37-39.) Eventually the three explorers are spewed back to the surface by an active volcano, Stromboli, in southern Italy.The category of subterranean fiction existed well before Verne. However his novel's distinction lay in its well-researched Victorian science and its inventive contribution to the science-fiction subgenre of time travel-Verne's innovation was the concept of a prehistoric realm still existing in the present-day world. Not surprisingly, Journey inspired many later authors, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his novel The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Pellucidar series. (wikipedia.org)

From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minutes (French: De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes) is an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil War society of weapons enthusiasts, and their attempts to build an enormous Columbiad space gun and launch three people-the Gun Club's president, his Philadelphian armor-making rival, and a French poet-in a projectile with the goal of a Moon landing. Five years later, Verne wrote a sequel called Around the Moon.The story is also notable in that Verne attempted to do some rough calculations as to the requirements for the cannon and in that, considering the comparative lack of empirical data on the subject at the time, some of his figures are remarkably accurate. However, his scenario turned out to be impractical for safe manned space travel since a much longer barrel would have been required to reach escape velocity while limiting acceleration to survivable limits for the passengers.The character of Michel Ardan, the French member of the party in the novel, was inspired by the real-life photographer Félix Nadar. (wikipedia.org)

Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in French in 1872. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (£2,242,900 in 2019) set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works. (wikipedia.org)

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860 - 15 July 1904) was a Russian physician, dramaturge and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Chekhov practised as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."Chekhov renounced the theatre after the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text."