Island of Doctor Moreau (Everyman Paperback Classics)

After a collision between two ships in rough seas, the wreck's sole survivor languished for eight days under a merciless sun. With neither food nor drink death seemed certain, but miraculously, Edward Prendick survived. Yet what he would encounter in the days ahead was more horrible and terrifying than death, for the island on which he landed was the home of the infamous Dr. Moreau whose goal was to create a powerful new breed of animal part man and part beast. Is it a miracle of science or a crime against nature?

A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palm-tree paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human and then "beastly" in ways they never were before--it's the stuff of high adventure. It's also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels), and a bloody tale of horror. Or, as H. G. Wells himself wrote about this story, "The Island of Dr. Moreau is an exercise in youthful blasphemy. Now and then, though I rarely admit it, the universe projects itself towards me in a hideous grimace. It grimaced that time, and I did my best to express my vision of the aimless torture in creation." This colorful tale by the author of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds lit a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication in 1896.