The Island of Doctor Moreau

The Island of Doctor Moreau, by Wells, H. G. - Akasha Classics, AkashaPublishing.Com - Join H.G. Wells for a spine-tingling classic of science fiction. When Edward Prendick is shipwrecked in the South Pacific, he is picked up by a ship loaded with animals and bound for a strange island. Once there Prendick finds himself under the power of Dr. Moreau, who has turned the island into a haven where he can indulge in dark experiments. As he discovers the horrors which Dr. Moreau has created, Prendick finds that his own life is now at stake. Criticized as blasphemous when it was first published in 1896, The Island of Dr. Moreau prefigures modern issues surrounding genetic engineering and the ethical problems of technology.

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.