24 chapters
6 hour read
Selected Chapters
24 chapters
INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
On February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1° S. and longitude 107° W. On January the Fifth, 1888—that is eleven months and four days after—my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5° 3′ S. and longitude 101° W. in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missin
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Island of Doctor Moreau
The Island of Doctor Moreau
(The Story written by Edward Prendick.)...
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
I. IN THE DINGEY OF THE “LADY VAIN.”
I. 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 longboat, with seven of the crew, was picked up eighteen days after by H. M. gunboat Myrtle , and the story of their terrible privations has become quite as well known as the far more horrible Medusa case. But I have to add to the published story of the Lady Vain another, possibly as horrible and far stranger.
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
II. THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE.
II. 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 each other without speaking. He had watery grey eyes, oddly void of expression. 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. He repeated his question,—“How do you feel no
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
III. THE STRANGE FACE.
III. THE STRANGE FACE.
We left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructing our way. He was standing on the ladder with his back to us, peering over the combing of the hatchway. He was, I could see, a misshapen man, short, broad, and clumsy, with a crooked back, a hairy neck, and a head sunk between his shoulders. He was dressed in dark-blue serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair. I heard the unseen dogs growl furiously, and forthwith he ducked back,—coming into contact with the hand I put out t
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
IV. AT THE SCHOONER’S RAIL.
IV. AT THE SCHOONER’S RAIL.
That night land was sighted after sundown, and the schooner hove to. Montgomery intimated that was his destination. It was too far to see any details; it seemed to me then simply a low-lying patch of dim blue in the uncertain blue-grey sea. An almost vertical streak of smoke went up from it into the sky. The captain was not on deck when it was sighted. After he had vented his wrath on me he had staggered below, and I understand he went to sleep on the floor of his own cabin. The mate practically
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO.
V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO.
In the early morning (it was the second morning after my recovery, and I believe the fourth after I was picked up), I awoke through an avenue of tumultuous dreams,—dreams of guns and howling mobs,—and became sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts. Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains. I heard the swish o
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN.
VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN.
But the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me. I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly; and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and return towards me. She was heavily laden, and I could make out as she drew nearer Montgomery’s white-haired, broad-shouldered companion sitting cramped up with the dogs and several packing-cases in the stern sheets. This individual stared fixedly at me without moving or speaking. The b
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VII. THE LOCKED DOOR.
VII. THE LOCKED DOOR.
The reader will perhaps understand that at first everything was so strange about me, and my position was the outcome of such unexpected adventures, that I had no discernment of the relative strangeness of this or that thing. I followed the llama up the beach, and was overtaken by Montgomery, who asked me not to enter the stone enclosure. I noticed then that the puma in its cage and the pile of packages had been placed outside the entrance to this quadrangle. I turned and saw that the launch had
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.
VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.
Montgomery interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion about one o’clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables, a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives. I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching me with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work to come. “Moreau!” said I. “I know that name.” “The devil yo
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST.
IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST.
I strode through the undergrowth that clothed the ridge behind the house, scarcely heeding whither I went; passed on through the shadow of a thick cluster of straight-stemmed trees beyond it, and so presently found myself some way on the other side of the ridge, and descending towards a streamlet that ran through a narrow valley. I paused and listened. The distance I had come, or the intervening masses of thicket, deadened any sound that might be coming from the enclosure. The air was still. The
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN.
X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN.
As I drew near the house I saw that the light shone from the open door of my room; and then I heard coming from out of the darkness at the side of that orange oblong of light, the voice of Montgomery shouting, “Prendick!” I continued running. Presently I heard him again. I replied by a feeble “Hullo!” and in another moment had staggered up to him. “Where have you been?” said he, holding me at arm’s length, so that the light from the door fell on my face. “We have both been so busy that we forgot
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN.
XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN.
It came before my mind with an unreasonable hope of escape that the outer door of my room was still open to me. I was convinced now, absolutely assured, that Moreau had been vivisecting a human being. All the time since I had heard his name, I had been trying to link in my mind in some way the grotesque animalism of the islanders with his abominations; and now I thought I saw it all. The memory of his work on the transfusion of blood recurred to me. These creatures I had seen were the victims of
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW.
XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW.
Then something cold touched my hand. I started violently, and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed child than anything else in the world. The creature had exactly the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low forehead and slow gestures. As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me more distinctly. The little sloth-like creature was standing and staring at me. My conductor had vanished. The place was a narrow passage between high walls of
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIII. A PARLEY.
XIII. A PARLEY.
I turned again and went on down towards the sea. I found the hot stream broadened out to a shallow, weedy sand, in which an abundance of crabs and long-bodied, many-legged creatures started from my footfall. I walked to the very edge of the salt water, and then I felt I was safe. I turned and stared, arms akimbo, at the thick green behind me, into which the steamy ravine cut like a smoking gash. But, as I say, I was too full of excitement and (a true saying, though those who have never known dan
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.
XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.
“And now, Prendick, I will explain,” said Doctor Moreau, so soon as we had eaten and drunk. “I must confess that you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained. I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige you. The next thing you threaten to commit suicide about, I shan’t do,—even at some personal inconvenience.” He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half consumed in his white, dexterous-looking fingers. The light of the swinging lamp fell on his white hair; he stared through the litt
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK.
XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK.
I woke early. Moreau’s explanation stood before my mind, clear and definite, from the moment of my awakening. I got out of the hammock and went to the door to assure myself that the key was turned. Then I tried the window-bar, and found it firmly fixed. That these man-like creatures were in truth only bestial monsters, mere grotesque travesties of men, filled me with a vague uncertainty of their possibilities which was far worse than any definite fear. A tapping came at the door, and I heard the
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD.
XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD.
My inexperience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread of my story. After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he took me across the island to see the fumarole and the source of the hot spring into whose scalding waters I had blundered on the previous day. Both of us carried whips and loaded revolvers. While going through a leafy jungle on our road thither, we heard a rabbit squealing. We stopped and listened, but we heard no more; and presently we went on our way, and the incident d
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVII. A CATASTROPHE.
XVII. A CATASTROPHE.
Scarcely six weeks passed before I had lost every feeling but dislike and abhorrence for this infamous experiment of Moreau’s. My one idea was to get away from these horrible caricatures of my Maker’s image, back to the sweet and wholesome intercourse of men. My fellow-creatures, from whom I was thus separated, began to assume idyllic virtue and beauty in my memory. My first friendship with Montgomery did not increase. His long separation from humanity, his secret vice of drunkenness, his eviden
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU.
XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU.
When I saw Montgomery swallow a third dose of brandy, I took it upon myself to interfere. He was already more than half fuddled. I told him that some serious thing must have happened to Moreau by this time, or he would have returned before this, and that it behoved us to ascertain what that catastrophe was. Montgomery raised some feeble objections, and at last agreed. We had some food, and then all three of us started. It is possibly due to the tension of my mind, at the time, but even now that
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIX. MONTGOMERY’S “BANK HOLIDAY.”
XIX. MONTGOMERY’S “BANK HOLIDAY.”
When this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten, Montgomery and I went into my little room and seriously discussed our position for the first time. It was then near midnight. He was almost sober, but greatly disturbed in his mind. He had been strangely under the influence of Moreau’s personality: I do not think it had ever occurred to him that Moreau could die. This disaster was the sudden collapse of the habits that had become part of his nature in the ten or more monotonous years he ha
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK.
XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK.
I faced these people, facing my fate in them, single-handed now,—literally single-handed, for I had a broken arm. In my pocket was a revolver with two empty chambers. Among the chips scattered about the beach lay the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats. The tide was creeping in behind me. There was nothing for it but courage. I looked squarely into the faces of the advancing monsters. They avoided my eyes, and their quivering nostrils investigated the bodies that lay beyond me on th
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK.
XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK.
In this way I became one among the Beast People in the Island of Doctor Moreau. When I awoke, it was dark about me. My arm ached in its bandages. I sat up, wondering at first where I might be. I heard coarse voices talking outside. Then I saw that my barricade had gone, and that the opening of the hut stood clear. My revolver was still in my hand. I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together close beside me. I held my breath, trying to see what it was. It began to move slowly, in
37 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XXII. THE MAN ALONE.
XXII. THE MAN ALONE.
In the evening I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle wind from the southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer and finer line against the hot sunset. The ocean rose up around me, hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hid
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter