4 Tales of Mystery (Illustrated)

The Secret of the Island

This book is a sequel to "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea". A
party of British adventurers, who had been ballooning, but whose trip
had ended by being cast away on a Pacific island, have various setbacks
due to both pirates and convicts who had escaped from jails in mainland
Australasia. They realise that at times there appears to be some kind
of entity that is looking after them.

This entity proves to be none other than Captain Nemo whom the reader is
expected to have met before with his submarine "Nautilus" in "20,000
Leagues". Captain Nemo has been living in a huge cave inside the very
volcanic island, where he is surrounded with immense wealth. But he is
nearing the end of his life. We are present at his end. But what
happens after that is of great interest.

Abandoned

The present romance, the second in the Mysterious Island triad, was originally issued in Paris with the title of L'Abandonné. Jules Verne's list of stories already ran then to some twenty volumes—a number which has since grown to almost Dumasien proportions. L'Abandonné, like its two companion tales, ran its course as a serial through the Magasin Illustré of education and recreation, before its issue as a boy's story-book. Its success in both forms seems to have established a record in the race for popularity and a circulation in both the French and English fields of current literature

The Blockade Runners

The Blockade Runners is a translation of Les forceurs
de blocus (1871). The Blockade Runners, a novella, was included
along with A Floating City in the first english and french editions
of this work. This translation, which follows that of Sampson and Low
(UK) and Scribners (US) is by "N. D'Anvers", pseudonymn for Mrs. Arthur
Bell (d. 1933) who also translated other Verne books. It is also
included in the fifteen volume Parke edition of the works of Jules
Verne (1911). There is another translation by Henry Frith which was
published by Routledge (1876).

Both of these stories are about ships; Floating City about the
largest ship of the time, the Great Eastern, and Blockade Runners
about one of the fastest, the Dolphin.

The Voyages And Adventures Of Captain Hatteras

"To-morrow, at the turn of the tide, the brig Forward, K. Z., captain, Richard Shandon, mate, will clear from New Prince's Docks; destination unknown."
This announcement appeared in the Liverpool Herald of April 5, 1860.
The sailing of a brig is not a matter of great importance for the chief commercial city of England. Who would take notice of it in so great a throng of ships of all sizes and of every country, that dry-docks covering two leagues scarcely contain them?
Nevertheless, from early morning on the 6th of April, a large crowd collected on the quays of the New Prince's Docks; all the sailors of the place seemed to have assembled there. The workingmen of the neighboring wharves had abandoned their tasks, tradesmen had left their gloomy shops, and the merchants their empty warehouses. The many-colored omnibuses which pass outside of the docks were discharging, every minute, their load of sight-seers; the whole city seemed to care for nothing except watching the departure of the Forward.
The Forward was a vessel of one hundred and seventy tons, rigged as a brig, and carrying a screw and a steam-engine of one hundred and twenty horse-power. One would have very easily confounded it with the other brigs in the harbor. But if it presented no especial difference to the eye of the public, yet those who were familiar with ships noticed certain peculiarities which could not escape a sailor's keen glance.