''Propeller Island'' (french: L'Île à hélice) (also published as ''The Floating Island, or The Pearl of the Pacific'', and as ''The Self-Propelled Island'') is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by French author

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

(1828–1905). It was first published in

1895 Events January–March * January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. * January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Histor ...

as part of the

Voyages Extraordinaires The ''Voyages extraordinaires'' (; ) is a collection or sequence of novels and short stories by the French writer Jules Verne. Fifty-four of these novels were originally published between 1863 and 1905, during the author's lifetime, and eig ...

. It relates the adventures of a French

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

in Milliard City, a city on a massive ship in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, inhabited entirely by millionaires.

Plot

A French string quartet (Sébastien Zorn, Frascolin, Yvernes and Pinchinat), traveling from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

to their next engagement in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, is diverted to Standard Island. Standard Island is an immense man-made island designed to travel the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The wealth of residents of the island can only be measured in millions. The quartet is hired to play a number of concerts for the residents during their tour of the islands (

Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

Cook Cook or The Cook may refer to: Food preparation * Cooking, the preparation of food * Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food * Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry * ...

Society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

) of the South Pacific. The island seems an idyllic paradise; however, it is an island divided in two. The left half's population is led by Jem Tankerdon and is known as the

Larboard Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft and aircraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which are ...

ites. The right half's population is led by Nat Coverley and is known as the Starboardites. Despite the obstacles encountered on their journey, the two parties have a disagreement that threatens the future of the island itself.

English versions

In October, 1896 Sampson Low (London) published the novel as ''The Floating Island, or The Pearl of the Pacific'', translated by W. J. Gordon, with 80 illustrations. While Gordon was an accomplished translator, boy's author, and literary figure with an accurate translation of Verne's '' The Giant Raft'' to his credit, the dark social commentary of ''Propeller Island'' did not sit well with his publishers, and numerous alterations in the text were made. As Arthur B. Evans notes: Gordon's translation was also used for the only fully illustrated American edition of the book, published in November 1897 by W. L. Allison. Other publishers were Hurst and Company and the Donahue Brothers. In 1967 Sidgwick and Jackson (London) published an abbreviated version of the work in the ''Fitzroy Edition'' as ''Propellor Island''. In 1990, Keegan Paul (US) republished the Allison edition of ''The Floating Island'' without illustrations and with an introduction by Kaori O'Connor. In 2015, Professor Marie-Thérèse Noiset of the University of North Carolina translated the book complete with the previously excised passages. Unusually, Verne's original was written in the present tense, but Noiset's release delivered the story in the past tense, which is the most common

narrative time A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narra ...

used in the writing of fiction. She explained, "In order for my translation to read smoothly, the Pacific Islands encountered in the novel have been given their present-day names, the measurements given by Verne have been converted from the metric system to the English system, and the narration has been translated into the past tense." Michael Orthofer critiqued the edition at his Complete Review website, writing that the original was "apparently one of the first examples of a novel written in the third-person and the present tense – yet surely these should count as additional reasons to try to recreate that in English..." Professor Arthur Bruce Evans of DePauw University reviewed the Noiset translation favorably, describing her prose as an example of " e fine art of translating—blending textual faithfulness with discursive fluidity..." Evans noted the "regrettable lack of illustrations" in the 2015 edition, as compared to the Verne octavo which held approximately 80 illustrations by

Léon Benett Léon Benett (born Hippolyte Léon Benet; 1839–1916) was a French painter and illustrator. He was born in Orange, Provence. He changed his name to "Léon Benett" to differentiate his career in the French administration from his work as a ...

Léon Benett - illustration de L'Île à hélice - 1895

References

External links

''Standard Island'' (Book), reconstructions of the flags described in the novel at the Flags of the World website

Plot

English versions

References

External links

See also