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    The Island of Dr. Moreau
    The Island of Dr. Moreau
    The Island of Dr. Moreau
    Ebook163 pages3 hours

    The Island of Dr. Moreau

    By H. G. Wells

    3.5/5

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    Tor Classics are affordably-priced editions designed to attract the young reader. Original dynamic cover art enthusiastically represents the excitement of each story. Appropriate "reader friendly" type sizes have been chosen for each title—offering clear, accurate, and readable text. All editions are complete and unabridged, and feature Introductions and Afterwords.

    This edition of The Island of Dr. Moreau includes a Foreword, Biographical Note, and Afterword by Elisabeth Engstrom.

    After a collision between two ships in rough seas, a "private gentlemen"--the wreck's sole survivor--languished for eight days under a merciless sun. With neither food to eat nor water to drink, death seemed a certainty. But miraculously, Edward Prendick survived.

    Yet what he was to encounter in the days ahead was more horrible and terrifying than any death he could ever have imagined. For the island on which he landed was the home of the infamous Dr. Moreau.

    Exiled from England because of his gruesome experiments in vivisection, Moreau has taken up residence in this remote paradise in order to continue his work. His goal: To create a new, superior race of beings! His legacy, however, would prove to be a nightmare beyond comprehension...



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2011
    ISBN9781429915274
    Author

    H. G. Wells

    H. G. Wells (1866-1946) is best remembered for his science fiction novels, which are considered classics of the genre, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). He was born in Bromley, Kent, and worked as a teacher, before studying biology under Thomas Huxley in London.

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    Reviews for The Island of Dr. Moreau

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Classed as "scientific romance" at the time, this is on the surface an adventure novel. The protagonist Prendick survives a shipwreck and finds himself on an island filled with curious creatures. Pendrick, like Wells himself, studied biology under Darwinist Thomas Huxley, and this forms the scientific backdrop. Like Lord of the Flies, The Island of Dr. Moreau has many layers. There's an underlying mockery of organized religion, a blurring of lines between human and inhuman, suggestions of a link between ethnicity and culture. The characters are flawed and malleable, changing with their environment. Their interaction represents the base around which the story revolves.A couple of possible influences, suggested by Margaret Atwood in her 2005 introduction, are The Tempest and Treasure Island. If you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy Atwood's own MaddAddam Trilogy.
    • 5/5
      I found this to be quite a fun read. That's a great compliment since I'm not really a fan of science fiction. However, I thought I'd give this story a go since I had previously found The Invisible Man, by the same author, very entertaining, In The Island of Dr. Moreau, a man named Prendick, ends up on an island inhabited by only two other men, one of who is a doctor intent on making animals into humans by vivisection. The results of his experimentation abound on the island as well as a rule of order known as The Law. Circumstances happen which change the status quo. It's interesting to follow along on this man-animal continuum to see how everything plays out and to learn if there us any chance that Prendick would make it off of this strange island alive.
    • 5/5
      En stillehavsø, 1887.Edward Prendick er ombord på skibet "Lady Vain", der forliser den 1. februar på ca 1 grader sydlig bredde og 107 grader vestlig længde. Ca 11 måneder senere bliver han fundet på 5,3 grader sydlig bredde og 101 grader vestlig længde i en lille båd. Han beretter om omholdet på en lille ukendt ø, hvor en doktor ved navn Moreau har gjort eksperimenter med dyr.???
    • 4/5
      Dr. Edward Prendick finds himself on a plane that is crashing into the sea. Luckily, he survives and is eventually found on his little raft by a passing ship. Dr. Angela Montgomery nurses him around and eventually the ship drops all passengers and their cargo at a little know island. There, Prendick is pulled into a world of animal experiments that will push the boundaries of his moral compass.This story is told as a series of flashbacks. Prendick lies in a hospital bed recounting his tale to his insistent daughter. Prendick is a mathematician who did some classified work during WWII. He’s a Brit who is still highly respected in his field by both the British and the Americans. Too bad his plane went down. He was believed lost to the world by all but Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Moreau. I was a little surprised by how much of a delicate flower Prendick was. He was usually freaking out about something or making rash decisions. He was a right nuisance on the island, even if he was the only one with what society would call normal morals. Still, he was a great character for Dr. Montgomery to stand beside and appear very reasonable and I think this made the story more intriguing. As a reader, it forced me to slow down on making a judgement and to truly consider the merits of the work of Moreau and Montgomery.I was surprised how few lines and appearances Dr. Moreau had in this story (or, at least, this rendition of it). After all, he is the master mind behind all this. So while we see little of him, his large ego leaves a lasting impression. He’s playing God with his experiments and he doesn’t hesitate to say so.As a biologist, I have long been both repulsed and fascinated by the experiments in this story. When Prendick first meets a few of these talking experiments, he thinks they are merely odd, deformed people. Later, he mistakenly believes that Moreau took living men and experimented on them, bringing out animal characteristics. Once he finds out the truth, that Moreau took animals and gave them human characteristics, he calms down a little, at first. The final step in the experiment is a pretty gruesome, painful one, requiring the chosen animal to remain awake and aware. Not all those who live through the experiment appreciate the gifts they have been given.As you might guess, things start to spiral out of control shortly after Prendick arrives on the island. Part of the reason is that he goes mucking about in a very excitable manner. But, then, Montgomery and Moreau don’t treat all the living experiments with respect either. Then there is the basic nature of the experiments and what will out in time. It was like the perfect storm.And then we quickly come to the ending which was rather anticlimactic for Moreau and a bit drawn out for Montgomery and Prendick. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get more from Moreau over all for the entire story and I was definitely a little sad to have his part of the story come to a swift end. After all, he is the reason, the driving force, for this tale, right? But then I enjoyed having more time with Montgomery and Prendick. From the flashbacks, we obviously know that Prendick makes it off the island alive somehow. It was fun to see how that came about.While I have enjoyed other HG Wells stories, this was my first time listening to a version of his book The Island of Doctor Moreau. I was not disappointed. All the drama associated with the moral conundrums of the tale was there. Also, I enjoyed the divided loyalties of Dr. Montgomery, who was saved by Dr. Moreau back during WWII, who loves the science of their work, but also has questions. Prendick was somewhat of a spazzing butterfly much of the time, but this personality trait went well with his sheltered, well mannered, bookish mathematician air. I look forward to future Mondello Publishing performances.I received a copy of this book at no cost from the publisher (via the GoodReads Audiobooks Group) in exchange for an honest review.The Narration: The performance all around was pretty worthy. Ms. Boltt had a spot on German accent for Montgomery that I really enjoyed. Posner did a great job as the highly excitable Prendick, sounding disturbed throughout the entire performance. I want to say that Jeff Minnerly had a great disgruntled voice for the ship captain and also a perfect mesh of human and monkey for Monkey Man. Bob De Dea did an awesome Hyena Man. There were plenty of animal sounds (screeches, grunts, cries, hyena laughs, etc.) throughout the performance and my hat’s off to that – well done! There was some exciting music in between scenes that I enjoyed, keeping the scene shifts clear to me as the listener. Most of the sound effects were great. There were a handful that took me an extra second or two to identify, but that is my only little quibble on the performance.
    • 4/5
      This is a clever and disturbing story. I found it reminiscent of Lord of the Flies but almost in reverse. The description of the hybrid beast-men is graphic enough to be unpleasant, yet the creatures still retain enough humanity to be sympathetic. A thought provoking read.
    • 3/5
      I vaguely knew what this book was about and I knew I wouldn't really care for it so I avoided reading it for a long time. However, the audiobook was available from my library as a free download and it was on the 1001 list so I decided to give it a try.A survivor of a ship wreck, Edward Prendrick, is picked up by a ship which is returning with supplies to the Island of Doctor Moreau. On board is Dr. Montgomery who assists Moreau and he restores Prendrick to consciousness. When the ship reaches the island the captain refuses to take Prendrick any further so he is forced on Moreau and Montgomery. Prendrick learns that Moreau creates human animal hybrids by performing vivisection (i.e. surgery while the animal is conscious) on various animals. Prendrick is sickened by this but, given his circumstances, he is unable to interfere. He wonders if he will ever leave the island or will he go insane as Moreau and Montgomery seem to have done.Very disturbing subject matter. I suppose Wells meant it to be as antivivisectionism was quite a movement in the late 1800s.
    • 4/5
      This is a harrowing memoir of a castaway's time on a small island off South America, inhabited by a mad scientist and his creations. Inspired in part I would guess by Frankenstein, it raises some of the same questions as to the ethics of experimentation, and the philosophical notion of personhood, though in this case on the boundary between the human and the animal, as opposed to the living and the dead.In its turn, it must have been an inspiration for Jurassic Park in some of its peripheral details, though again, that raises a different set of ethical questions and doesn't tread into the territory of the man-beasts of Dr Moreau. Though the plausibility of the science aspect of this novel suffers slightly from it being written quite a while ago, it is quite possible to see how similar ends could be brought about in the future with the wacky misuse of genetic engineering.I really enjoyed this novel, and despite it being relatively short (160 pages), it is complete in its plot and makes for a page-turning read. A really good introduction to H G Wells, and a clever and exciting novel, though some people will find it too creepy to enjoy.
    • 4/5
      First line:~ On February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1 degree S. and longitude 107degrees W. ~I actually enjoyed this book very much. Again, with this classic literature, I don’t know why I keep on being surprised that these books are soooo great! I guess that is why they come to be acknowledged as classics. Suspense built very nicely and very well written.As someone who lives with chronic pain, I found the Doctor’s ideas on pain to be quite frightening. To deliberately create such agony for others is tragic to me. It takes away from our humanness.And then that gets me thinking about slaughterhouses and, although I like my meat, it gives me a whole new appreciation of the work of Temple Grandin and her development of humane slaughterhouses.As in Frankenstein and some of the short stories recently read by Hawthorne and Poe, the scientists are trying to improve on ‘life’ and instead succeed in creating something that is ‘perverted’ in a sense. This book clearly points out the hazards of indiscriminate science and makes me grateful for ethics boards etc today. Not that modern man has got it right, yet. We still have had horrors of experimentation including those done during the Holocaust and Project MKUltra by the CIA using hallucinogens on unsuspecting men and women, as late as 1973.Much to think about in this book. I would highly recommend it. Plus it is not long and thus a quick read. (4.0 stars)
    • 4/5
      An instant classic. I found H.G Wells' book to be quite entertaining. The "monsters" of the island are grotesque and are fun to read about. Dr. Moreau himself is seen as an unapologetic man who thinks he is doing right by turning beasts into men. A good enjoyable read. I'd recommend it.
    • 4/5
      The Island of Doctor Moreau is a clear example of the “Eden Complex”, as advanced by Professor Eric S. Rabkin. A similar case could be made for The Country of the Blind, but for this essay I will concentrate on an identification of the constituent elements within just the one work.The Complex, as explained, contains six elements: garden imagery, fantastic roots, natural limits, a scientist (in the most etymologically literal sense) striving to be a god, Oedipal structures and typical SF dichotomies. The most obvious of these elements in Dr. Moreau is the Eden/garden imagery: Noble's Isle (where the drama is assumed to take place) is an isolated, verdant and uninhabited island, clearly paralleling the garden of Eden.Also clear are the fairytale roots – much use is made of primary colour (particularly natural greens contrasted with crimson gore, but also dramatic sun-related effects), there are certainly arbitrary rules (not entering certain areas, and later the Law), the duration of the story occurs “out-of-time” and the protagonist's centrality is reinforced by the single-viewpoint epistolary form.Dr. Moreau is clearly the isolated scientist striving to be a god, though Prendick himself is also a man of science who at the end of the novel tries (and fails) to assume the position of godhead. The presence of typical SF dichotomies is also unarguable (nature v science being the most obvious).The element of the Complex which is harder to identify is the Oedipal dramatic structure: Prendick does not visibly struggle for mental knowledge during the story, though his sexual motives are less clear. There are a couple of telling passages, such as when discussing the beasts' reversion to their animal natures, where sexual disgust is present, but it is not clear whether Prendick has sought to “know” the creatures in a Biblical sense. There are also Oedipal traces in the relationship with the Dog-creature, who transfers loyalty and affection from the paternal figure of Moreau onto Prendick.Thus, even if the Oedipal element is only potential, this novel is a clear example of the Eden Complex.
    • 4/5
      Pendrick landet nach einem Schiffsunglück zusammen mit seinem Retter auf einer kleinen abgeschlagenen Insel.Die Menschen dort verhalten sich seltsam und wecken in Pendrick ungeahnte Ängste. Bald erfährt er, dass ein gewisser Moreau auf der Insel arbeitet, der vor einiger Zeit schon in den britischen Medien durch biologische Experimente auffällig geworden war.Pendrick bekommt ein ihm eigens zugewiesenes Zimmer, doch hinter verschlossenen Türen bahnen sich unmenschliche Schreie ihren Weg in seinen Geist. Er flieht, doch was er dann sieht, lässt ihn den Glauben an das Gute im Menschen verlieren.H. G. Wells gilt als Begründer der modernen Science Fiction.Der Schauplatz hier: eine kleine verschlagene Insel mitten im Nirgendwo. Ein Arzt, der es sich zum Ziel gemacht hat, biologische Prozesse außer Kraft zu setzen und zu verändern. Pendrick erzählt als Überlebender diese unglaubliche Geschichte, die ihm niemand glaubt. Und doch ist er der einzige Zeuge eines Wahnsinns, der nicht nur Tiere, sondern auch Menschen leiden lässt. Er lebt in ständiger Angst vor den Wesen der Insel, versucht sie zu beherrschen, sie zu verstehen, sich anzupassen und endet schließlich wieder in der Angst vor ihrer wahren Natur.Ein wunderbarer Roman über den Größenwahn eines einzigen Menschen, der sich in seinen Experimenten ergeht und dem Moral und Anstand nichts bedeuten. Er stellt die Wissenschaft über alles. Wells ist ein großartiger Geschichtenerzähler, der den Leser mitnimmt, ihn durch die Geschichte trägt und ihn hier und dort zu einer Stellungnahme zwingt.
    • 4/5
      Another reread for me, as I read quite a lot of Wells in my late teens and early twenties. Still an enjoyable classic which explores science, surgery, morality and the nature of god. The topic reminds me a lot of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. We follow Pendrick who is rescued after a ship wreck, and then finds himself on an isolated island with two scientists in a medical compound. The story is told through Pendrick eyes, and you can feel all the fear, disgust and horror in his voice. Dr. Moreau practices vivisection to transform animals into humans, by modifying both, their physical appearance and improved mental workings, which in turn gives them the ability of speech and some mental reasoning. His justification is that there is a need to perfect his surgical skills, to ? ultimately improve the suffering of human beings with deformities. Once, he finished the vivisection and these human/animal hybrids don't fulfil his expectations, they are cast aside. The hybrids he cast aside are kept in check by way of an instilled law he achieved through some kind of ? hypnosis. This law has the purpose that the hybrids don't go back to their animal ways, and that they accept Dr. Moreau as their creator. In the end the animal side of these hybrids win's, and they manage to take revenge at their creator and his assistant. Pendrick survives and is still stuck on the island for several months, before he can flee himself.All in all a complex and thought provoking story.
    • 3/5
      Prior to reading this novel, I was very familiar with the story, having watched at least one movie adaptation. The story is a classic one, and I imagine most readers would be familiar with at least the concept prior to reading. The concept of the story is a good one, but the writing style is a bit dry. Some parts of the story are a little confusing to read. Although it was written some time ago, some of the themes, like the ruthless exploitation of science, are timeless. Still, it was hard to get past some of the dialogue and writing, which would transform this from a solid read, to something special.Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity
    • 5/5
      Through vivisection, Moreau evolves animals into far cries of men and women. He makes them stand up and walk like humans and refines their throats so that they can talk. He succeeds so well in his latest experiments that Prendick, unwilling witness of all this, can hardly tell the servants from the animals Moreau has used as building matter.

      But Moreau hasn’t always been as successful, and the whole island he has found refuge on, reeks with the half-experiments and failed attempts he’s carried out in the last ten years in an abominable show of horrors.

      Moreau’s ultimate goal is immediate evolution at all costs and one wonders if, in his mind, even human beings have a place for further development.

      Wells’ theme in this story goes beyond the mere portrayal of a crazed scientist who uses torture. In many ways, Moreau is Wells’ attempt to look into the obscure abyss that is our subconscious. For the chasm from where Moreau draws his talking animals is also mankind’s abyss of unknown, where our past and our common fears and hopes dwell.

      Prendick's escape from Moreau’s madness brings him to the “huts,” where these creatures live in a half-human state. Never fully civilized, they live in a twilight between their former nature and the human they are supposed to mimic.

      Even if Moreau has forced them into a religion which only enforces his undisputed powers of a god, his best experiments are short-lived. The more he perfects his creations, the more the trouble he has at controlling them until, in one last attempt to bring order, Moreau is killed. As soon as the driving spark of the mind that is Moreau vanishes, his experiments revert to being the animals they were in the first instance.

      In the attempt of confronting the animal which lies within the human lies Wells’ most exceptional modernity.
    • 3/5
      Pure unadulterated paranoia and gore. Pretty fucking scary.
    • 5/5
      "What could it all mean?. A locked enclosure on a lonely island, a notorious vivisector and these crippled and distorted men These are the thoughts of Edward Prendick: Well's anti-hero who is in effect a castaway on the island of Doctor Moreau. Most readers would be able to tell Prendick exactly what it means, because there has been at least three film versions and the story has been widely imitated. This is a horror story and the horror is palpable: if vivisection is the stuff of your nightmares then this novel will not be easy reading. Doctor Moreau is obsessed with his theories of being able to create men from beasts and has set up his laboratory on an island in the Pacific ocean far from any shipping lanes. He spends his time slashing and cutting away at live animals in an attempt to create something recognisable in human form and Wells makes us feel the pain and the degradation of his cruelty. In the chapter "The crying Puma" Prendick is given a room on the other side of a locked door leading into the laboratory and Doctor Moreau is operating on the puma:Suddenly the Puma howled again, this time more painfully. Montgomery swore under his breath. I had half a mind to attack him about the man on the beach. Then the poor brute within gave vent to a series of short, sharp cries.......I found myself that the cries were singularly irritating, and they grew in depth and intensity as the afternoon wore on. They were painful at first, but their constant resurgence at last altogether upset my balance. I flung aside a crib of Horace I had been reading, and began to clench my fists, to bite my lips, and to pace the room. Presently I got to stopping my ears with my fingers.The emotional appeal of those yells grew upon me steadily, grew at last to such an exquisite expression of suffering that I could stand it in that confined room no longer. I stepped out of the door into the slumberous heat of the late afternoon, and walking past the main entrance - locked again, I noticed - turned the corner of the wall. The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe - I have thought since - I could have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering and this pity comes troubling usThere are over 100 of the man-beasts still alive on the island who have all undergone days of surgery in the house of pain. They live as best they can according to a ritual of law imposed by Doctor Moreau in an attempt to stop them reverting to mindless beasts.It is an adventure story as well as a horror story but the sickness of the life on the island is never far away from our thoughts as we read on to discover what happens next. Wells has used the literary device of the story being discovered amongst Prendicks papers after his death and so it is told by him in the first person. This adds immediacy to the writing and we witness the fear, the degradation, and the pain at first hand, it also allows for a certain amount of tension and mystery especially in the first part of the novel. Prendick believes that he might be a subject for vivisection and his escape from the compound and headlong flight amongst the man-beasts on the tropical island is exciting and vividly told.There is more to Well's novel than an adventure/horror story. At the time of the novel's publication 1896 there was a debate raging about the morality of vivisection and Wells story pitches right in with the horrors that medical science can and will inflict if it remains unchecked. Evolution through natural selection or Darwinism was also much in the minds of the late Victorians and Thomas Huxley was seen as a propagator of Darwin's theories. Prendick in the novel says that he spent some years studying under Huxley, whose views that morality is determined independently of the biological origins of humanity is another key theme explored by Wells. The man-beasts must be indoctrinated by a set of rules, chanted by them at frequent intervals to help arrest their degeneration back into wild animals.Man as a social animal is another theme fully explored by Wells in his novel. The three characters that feature on the island are Prendick, Doctor Moreau and Montgomery, they are all in their way outcasts and it is typical of Wells to make his main character very much an anti-hero. Prendick finds himself sent to the island after an altercation with the ships captain, he is not welcome on the island despite his knowledge of biology, Montgomery calls him a prig, because of his standoffish behaviour and refusal to drink alcohol. Prendick himself although appalled by what is going on in the laboratory, has no thoughts of intervening, he would rather run away from the cruelty than challenge it. His practical knowledge is almost non-existent and when he is called upon to show courage or take action he always demurs. When he returns to civilisation he becomes again "the man alone," who would rather be with his books and papers than mix with other people. Doctor Moreau is an obsessional scientist whose moral code one might think is typical of such a man. Montgomery is a born follower, under the spell of the Doctor, but who has some sympathies with the beast-men, but takes solace in his alcoholism.Other themes that might easily be read into the novel are colonialism and religion, but care should be taken not to read to much from our 21st century perspective. As is usual with H G Wells there is much going on; I sometimes get the feeling that so many questions about the human condition are raised that it would take a much longer novel than this to deal with them all, however all power to Well's elbow for raising them here in a novel that is both original and looks forward to realisable horrors that would take place in the century following the novels publication. Nothing should get in the way of the fact that this horror story is genuinely creepy, certainly horrible, superbly well paced and reads like an adventure story. A great read 4.5 stars.
    • 3/5
      I love some H. G. Wells, specifically the short stories, which are pure and unadulterated (tautology, anyone?) genius and the comic novels such as Kipps and Mr Polly. This one has some genius moments, but overall was not ultimately gripping. Of course, it's difficult to come at a novel such as this, where we all KNOW what's going on before we read a word, and experience the mystery the author intended, so that doesn't help. Perhaps that's part of the problem, as the first few chapters are all "Oh my goodness, what's going on here?"-type scene setting. Aside from that, I do like to be able to feel empathy on some level with at least one of the characters; they don't have to be perfect, or even nice, but I have to be able to make SOME sort of emotional connection with them. I wasn't able to with anyone/any creature in this book.

      Another issue, to my mind, is that I feel Wells' always had a bit of a problem figuring out how to end novels. Like Phillip K. Dick after him, the short story was his forté. This one ends *somewhat* satisfactorily, but overall I wasn't convinced. What happens to the creatures? What happens when somebody one day goes to survey the island and finds the ancestors? Unanswered question that bugged me a little too much.
    • 3/5
      Before I read this short novel, my sense of the story was formed by the 1977 movie which didn't do much for me. The original is an oddly-dated, oddly-relevant exploration of bioethics disguised as an adventure tale.
    • 5/5
      H. G. Wells presents a wonderful science fiction novel that dives straight into what it means to be a human being. We are a highly evolved species, but at our core, we are bloodthirsty animals as well. This is definitely one of the greatest science fiction novels of all-time, and can also serve as a great study about the human condition.
    • 3/5
      Fairly predictable, but a thrilling read none the less.
    • 4/5
      Very well written but just not my kind of story. Too creepy! I had to watch some silly TV for a while after finishing to prevent myself from having nightmares!
    • 5/5
      I was extremely surprised at how much I liked this book. Other reviews say it better than I do, so I'll just throw in my recommendation.
    • 5/5
      I don't know if H.G. Wells was an atheist or not, but if this was the only writing he had left behind, I would have thought he was.

      Slow start, but the last 25% of the book more than makes up for it. A fabulous parody of the Christian creation myth and the myth of Jesus.

      EXCELLENT.
    • 2/5
      Despite an intriguing concept and an interesting final quarter, The Island of Dr. Moreau fails to really engage the reader. The first three quarters of the book are filled with rambling info-dumps, detailed plot lines, and character introductions that aren’t really necessary to the story. The narrator, Prendick, spends a long time building up to the reveal of what’s happening on the island. If he were dropping clues and piecing together the puzzle himself, the reader would be right there along with him. But instead, he simply narrates odd things that happen around him without seeming to be able to come to any conclusions. It’s up to Dr. Moreau himself to explain everything in a lengthy monologue, and only after Prendick has seen it first-hand. Even listening to this monologue, Prendick asks the wrong questions. He seems to be so caught up in the impropriety of the island that he can’t bring himself to think deeper about any of it. Moreau makes a point of saying that he doesn’t use any humans in his experiments, but how is that possible? How do you combine a bat and a dog and come up with something that walks on two legs and can speak English? And if the Hyena-Swine is a cross between those two animals, then what, exactly, are the Leopard-Man and Ape-Man created from? Since Prendick never asks about it or suspects Moreau was lying, it seems like a rather large plot hole. The world view that underlies Prendick’s narration hurts the book as well. He clearly has an ideal of a white, heterosexual, educated Englishman as the pinnacle of civilized life. There are many subtle examples of this bias throughout the narrative, but the most egregious (to me) was his comment that the female Beast Folk seemed to be more aware of their grotesqueness and to feel shame about it, dressing themselves up more with pretty fabrics. Retch. If you can make it through the problems in the first three quarters of the book, though, you’ll be rewarded with the ending. After a pretty dramatic action scene (relatively), the tenor of the island changes. Prendick’s priggishness, snobbery, and self-righteousness finally start to affect his safety, and he’s forced to either change his behavior or face a dangerous, lonely life. He mostly chooses the latter. These final 4 months on the island are skimmed over for the most part, but it is only then that Prendick actually begins to change a bit. The most introspective Prendick ever gets is when he returns to England and finds himself utterly traumatized by the events of the island. After being so caught up in propriety and civilized behavior for so long, Prendick finds he can’t quite blend back into society. Maybe Wells chose Prendick as his narrator specifically to show how ridiculous his attitude is and how ill-equipped it leaves him to deal with anything more difficult than a London train delay. If so, I think this would have come through more clearly if the story were told in third-person rather than Prendick’s rather shallow first-person narration. But the fact that the unnamed narrator of War of the Worlds had some of these same hang-ups gives me pause. At any rate, it makes both narrators difficult to sympathize with.
    • 3/5
      This story does not need me to review it, so I'll put some of my thoughts and impressions here instead. It is about a scientist who has no qualms about inflicting horrific pain on animals and for some mystifying reason thinks they would be better in the shape of humans. I believe the pointlessness of it all was what I didn't get, but then, I suppose that shows the madness of the doctor. Another thing which annoyed me, was that the storyteller seemed to be upset about it all for weird reasons. He kept going on about the abomination of the creatures because they weren't human. The abomination was that they were not allowed to be the beautiful creatures they were created to be. Even supposing it to be all medically possible, WHY would anyone want to do that? Animals are created perfectly for their function, and their function is necessary, so the abomination lies in not allowing them to be what they are, not in the fact that they could not be what the doctor was trying to twist them into. Also, his terror when they began reverting to animals again was off. I would have been happy to have them all be animals again, without the torment of mind and body. Much simpler to live with, I would think.
    • 3/5
      Another one for my SF/F class. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about for this one: Wells wrote with such clarity that it feels like everything is completely obvious. I don't find his work the most gripping stuff around, but I do enjoy reading it -- partly because of that sense of clarity: he knows exactly what he wants to say, and says it.There is something dispassionate about all his work, to me, but I can appreciate his ideas.
    • 3/5
      Much better than the movie - although that could be said of many works. But the novel is more about the moral issues around science "at any cost" and man's place in the animal kingdom than about a horror story about a man being changed into an animal (at least in the Michael York version I saw, which completely misses the point).
      A man is stranded on an island where a scientist is changing animals into people. Predictably, the animals transgress and revolt bringing about the death of the scientist. They revert to their animal selves and the man escapes back to "civilization".
    • 4/5
      A very quick read, but highly recommended. Considering this novel was originally published in 1896, the forsight of H.G. Wells is absolutely amazing. The fear that Edward feels when he hears the animal screams coming from behind the locked door, the panick of being lost in the woods, all of it is felt first hand thanks to Wells' magnificent writing.
    • 4/5
      Trailblazing for its time, the lack of climax detracts from this eerie story which plods along describing the horrors of Dr. Moreau's experiments in turning beasts to men. I found it pretty dull. Perhaps I have just been spoiled by too many action flicks, but I greatly preferred his novel 'War of the Worlds'.
    • 5/5
      That Wells was a visionary, and one of the most far-sighted and innovative writers of imaginative literature the human race has ever produced… well, everyone says that, and it’s a bit of a cliche. What’s worth knowing about his stuff (and a lot of critics seem to underplay this) is that lots of his books are just REALLY GOOD FUN - and folks, this is a fine example. For a novel written more than a hundred and ten years ago it goes at a cracking pace: by just five pages in, the characters are stranded at sea, starving and drawing lots over who’s going to be cannibalized -- and, amazingly, the book never really lets up from there. It’s like a fever hallucination full of vivisection and mutants and horror, filtered through a contagious atmosphere of shimmering jungle heat. The ideas are great, sure, but the real triumph, it seems to me, is in how sure-footedly punchy and unpretentious the writing is: it’s wild and mad and deliriously evocative, but in its understated way it’s also real, it’s fierce, and it’s all over-and-out in just a hair under two hundred pages, without ever having lost its initial intensity. This was the second time I’ve read the book now and - like malaria - I fully expect to face bouts of reading it again and again every so often for the rest of my life. All I can say is, lucky me. And if you haven’t read The Island of Doctor Moreau yet, lucky /you/.

    Book preview

    The Island of Dr. Moreau - H. G. Wells

    CHAPTER THE FIRST

    In the Dingey of the Lady Vain

    I DO NOT propose to add anything to what has already been written concerning the loss of the Lady Vain. As everyone knows, she collided with a derelict when ten days out from Callao. The long-boat with seven of the crew was picked up eighteen days after by H.M. gun-boat Myrtle, and the story of their privations has become almost as well known as the far more terrible Medusa case. I have now, however, to add to the published story of the Lady Vain another as horrible, and certainly far stranger. It has hitherto been supposed that the four men who were in the dingey perished, but this is incorrect. I have the best evidence for this assertion—I am one of the four men.

    But, in the first place, I must state that there never were four men in the dingey; the number was three. Constans, who was seen by the captain to jump into the gig (Daily News, March 17, 1887), luckily for us, and unluckily for himself, did not reach us. He came down out of the tangle of ropes under the stays of the smashed bowsprit; some small rope caught his heel as he let go and he hung for a moment head downward, and then fell and struck a block or spar floating in the water. We pulled towards him, but he never came up.

    I say luckily for us he did not reach us, and I might also add luckily for himself, for there were only a small beaker of water and some soddened ship’s biscuits with us—so sudden had been the alarm, so unprepared the ship for any disaster. We thought the people on the launch would be better provisioned (though it seems they were not), and we tried to hail them. They could not have heard us, and the next morning when the drizzle cleared—which was not until past mid-day—we could see nothing of them. We could not stand up to look about us because of the pitching of the boat. The sea ran in great rollers, and we had much ado to keep the boat’s head to them. The two other men who had escaped so far with me were a man named Helmar, a passenger like myself, and a seaman whose name I don’t know, a short sturdy man with a stammer.

    We drifted famishing, and, after our water had come to an end, tormented by an intolerable thirst, for eight days altogether. After the second day the sea subsided slowly to a glassy calm. It is quite impossible for the ordinary reader to imagine those eight days. He has not—luckily for himself—anything in his memory to imagine with. After the first day we said little to one another, and lay in our places in the boat and stared at the horizon, or watched, with eyes that grew larger and more haggard every day, the misery and weakness gaining upon our companions. The sun became pitiless. The water ended on the fourth day, and we were already thinking strange things and saying them with our eyes; but it was, I think, the sixth before Helmar gave voice to the thing we all had in mind. I remember our voices dry and thin, so that we bent towards one another and spared our words. I stood out against it with all my might, was rather for scuttling the boat and perishing together among the sharks that followed us; but when Helmar said that if his proposal was accepted we should have drink, the sailor came round to him.

    I would not draw lots, however, and in the night the sailor whispered to Helmar again and again, and I sat in the bows with my clasp-knife in my hand—though I doubt if I had the stuff in me to fight. And in the morning I agreed to Helmar’s proposal, and we handed halfpence to find the odd man.

    The lot fell upon the sailor, but he was the strongest of us and would not abide by it, and attacked Helmar with his hands. They grappled together and almost stood up. I crawled along the boat to them, intending to help Helmar by grasping the sailor’s leg, but the sailor stumbled with the swaying of the boat, and the two fell upon the gunwhale and rolled overboard together. They sank like stones. I remember laughing at that and wondering why I laughed. The laugh caught me suddenly like a thing from without.

    I lay across one of the thwarts for I know not how long, thinking that if I had the strength I would drink sea-water and madden myself to die quickly. And even as I lay there I saw, with no more interest than if it had been a picture, a sail come up towards me over the skyline. My mind must have been wandering, and yet I remember all that happened quite distinctly. I remember how my head swayed with the seas, and the horizon with the sail above it danced up and down. But I also remember as distinctly that I had a persuasion that I was dead, and that I thought what a jest it was they should come too late by such a little to catch me in my body.

    For an endless period, as it seemed to me, I lay with my head on the thwart watching the dancing schooner—she was a little ship, schooner-rigged fore and aft—come up out of the sea. She kept tacking to and fro in a widening compass, for she was sailing dead into the wind. It never entered my head to attempt to attract attention, and I do not remember anything distinctly after the sight of her side, until I found myself in a little cabin aft. There is a dim half memory of being lifted up to the gangway and of a big round countenance, covered with freckles and surrounded with red hair, staring at me over the bulwarks. I also had a disconnected impression of a dark face with extraordinary eyes close to mine, but that I thought was a nightmare until I met it again. I fancy I recollect some stuff being poured in between my teeth. And that is all.

    CHAPTER THE SECOND

    The Man who was going Nowhere

    THE CABIN in which I found myself was small and rather untidy. A youngish man with flaxen hair, a bristly straw-coloured moustache, and a dropping nether lip was sitting and holding my wrist. For a minute we stared at one another without speaking. He had watery grey expressionless eyes.

    Then just overhead came a sound like an iron bedstead being knocked about and the low angry growling of some large animal. At the same time the man spoke again.

    He repeated his question: How do you feel now?

    I think I said I felt all right. I could not recollect how I had got there. He must have seen the question in my face, for my voice was inaccessible to me.

    "You were picked up in a boat—starving. The name on the boat was the Lady Vain, and there were queer marks on the gunwhale." At the same time my eye caught my hand, so thin that it looked like a dirty skin purse full of loose bones, and all the business of the boat came back to me.

    Have some of this, said he, and gave me a dose of some scarlet stuff, iced.

    It tasted like blood, and made me feel stronger.

    You were in luck, said he, to get picked up by a ship with a medical man aboard. He spoke with a slobbering articulation, with the ghost of a lisp.

    What ship is this? I said slowly, hoarse from my long silence.

    "It’s a little trader from Arica and Callao. I never asked where she came from in the beginning. Out of the land of born fools, I guess. I’m a passenger myself from Arica. The silly ass who owns her—he’s captain too, named Davis—he’s lost his certificate or something. You know the kind of man—calls the thing the Ipecacuanha—of all silly infernal names, though when there’s much of a sea without any wind she certainly acts according."

    Then the noise overhead began again, a snarling growl and the voice of a human being together. Then another voice telling some Heaven-forsaken idiot to desist.

    You were nearly dead, said my interlocutor. It was a very near thing indeed. But I’ve put some stuff into you now. Notice your arms sore? Injections. You’ve been insensible for nearly thirty hours.

    I thought slowly. I was distracted now by the yelping of a number of dogs. May I have solid food? I asked.

    Thanks to me, he said. Even now the mutton is boiling.

    Yes, I said, with assurance; I could eat some mutton.

    But, said he, with a momentary hesitation, you know I’m dying to hear how you came to be alone in the boat. I thought I detected a certain suspicion in his eyes.

    "Damn that howling!"

    He suddenly left the cabin, and I heard him in violent controversy with someone who seemed to me to talk gibberish in response to him. The matter sounded as though it ended in blows, but in that I thought my ears were mistaken. Then he shouted at the dogs and returned to the cabin.

    Well? said he, in the doorway. You were just beginning to tell me.

    I told him my name, Edward Prendick, and how I had taken to natural history as a relief from the dulness of my comfortable independence. He seemed interested in this. I’ve done some science myself—I did my Biology at University College,—getting out the ovary of the earthworm and the radula of the snail and all that. Lord! it’s ten years ago. But go on, go on—tell me about the boat.

    He was evidently satisfied with the frankness of my story, which I told in concise sentences enough—for I felt horribly weak,—and when it was finished he reverted presently to the topic of natural history and his own biological studies. He began to question me closely about Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street. Is Caplatzi still flourishing? What a shop that was! He had evidently been a very ordinary medical student, and drifted incontinently to the topic of the music-halls. He told me some anecdotes. Left it all, he said, ten years ago. How jolly it all used to be! But I made a young ass of myself … . Played myself out before I was twenty-one. I daresay it’s all different now … . But I must look up that ass of a cook and see what he’s doing to your mutton.

    The growling overhead was renewed, so suddenly and with so much savage anger that it startled me. What’s that? I called after him, but the door had closed. He came back again with the boiled mutton, and I was so excited by the appetising smell of it, that I forgot the noise of the beast forthwith.

    After a day of alternate sleep and feeding I was so far recovered as to be able to get from my bunk to the scuttle and see the green seas trying to keep pace with us. I judged the schooner was running before the wind. Montgomery—that was the name of the flaxen-haired man—came in again as I stood there, and I asked him for some clothes. He lent me some duck things of his own, for those I had worn in the boat, he said, had been thrown overboard. They were rather loose for me, for he was large and long in his

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