Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne's masterpiece. Published in French as L'Île Mystérieuse in 1874, this novel is a sequel to Verne's earlier Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas. After hijacking a balloon from a Confederate camp, a band of five northern prisoners escape the American...

After escaping from their captors in a giant air balloon, five prisoners of the Civil War find themselves stranded on a deserted island. Despite their different backgrounds, they decide to band together and combine their talents to live on the island, which they named Lincoln Island. Cyrus is a railroad engineer, Gideon is a journalist, Neb is a man who escaped slavery, Pencroff is a sailor, and Harbert is Pencroff's protégé and son. Each man uses...