''The Vanished Diamond'', also translated as ''The Southern Star'' (french: L'Étoile du sud, lit. ''The Star of the South''), is an

1884 Events January–March * January 4 – The Fabian Society is founded in London. * January 5 – Gilbert and Sullivan's '' Princess Ida'' premières at the Savoy Theatre, London. * January 18 – Dr. William Price at ...

French novel credited to Jules Verne, based on an uncredited manuscript by

Paschal Grousset Jean François Paschal Grousset (7 April 1844, in Corte – 9 April 1909, in Paris) was a French politician, journalist, translatorHe was the first to translate Treasure Island into French in 1885 (''L'île au trésor'', éd. Hetzel) and scienc ...

Setting

This novel takes place in South Africa amongst the

diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

fields in the district of Griqualand. Most of the land is owned by a fictitious wealthy miner, Mr. John Watkins. A shanty town filled with miners has sprung up, all with the hope to get rich. The main area of diamond mining is the Vandergaart

Kopje An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...

Synopsis

The protagonist is a French mining engineer, Victor Cyprien (in the original French version: Cyprien Méré). He moves to the Griqualand district to study the formation of diamonds. While he is there he falls in love with wealthy landowner Mr. John Watkins' daughter, Alice. He asks him for her hand in marriage but is denied on his lack of money and stature in the community. He decides that he could amass a fortune by mining with a partner, Thomas Steel. They buy a mining claim and proceed to dig. Victor hires a team of Africans to mine the claim. The claim collapses when Victor's team of hired help is digging. He manages to rescue one of them, Mataki. Achieving no great finds, Victor is disheartened for there are many more eligible suitors than he. Alice begs Cyprien to return to his studies. So Victor decides to attempt to artificially make a diamond. His experiment seems to work as a 243 carat (48.6 g) diamond is produced. He gives it to Mr. Watkins for Alice. Mr. Watkins holds a banquet in honor of Cyprien and his accomplishment. The diamond, christened as The Star of the South by Alice, is on display during this banquet. Midway through the banquet, the diamond vanishes as well as Victor's African hired help, Mataki. Mataki appears to flee with the diamond and Mr. Watkins, enraged, offers Alice's hand to whoever brings the diamond back. Victor and three other suitors set off to hunt Mataki down. They prepare to travel across the

Veld Veld ( or ), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in :Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Bot ...

. Victor brings along two companions his laundry man, Li, and a member of his digging team, Bardik. Along the way, the other three of his companions perish at the hands of animals or disease. Victor captures Mataki, who states he does not have the diamond. The only reason he ran was because he was afraid he would be hanged unjustly for the diamond's disappearance. Victor returns to Griqualand and finds the diamond in the stomach of Alice's ostrich, Dada. Cyprien is almost hanged because his discovery of making artificial diamonds threatened the livelihood of the miners. He is only saved by Mataki's confession. Mataki found the diamond when he was covered by the landslide and stuck it in Victor's experiment in gratitude. Victor is shocked. Not caring about the diamond's origin, Mr. Watkins is glad for the recovery and holds another banquet. Mr. Vandergaart, the original owner of the land bursts in with a certificate saying that the land is once again his. John Watkins is devastated and is even more devastated when the Star of the South disintegrates. Shocked he dies the next day. Victor and Alice marry and live happily ever after.

Writing and versions

The original manuscript of the novel, titled "L'Étoile du Sud : Aventures au pays des diamants" ("The Southern Star: Adventures in the Land of Diamonds") was written by the novelist and activist

under the pseudonym Philippe Daryl. The publisher

Pierre-Jules Hetzel Pierre-Jules Hetzel (15 January 1814 – 17 March 1886) was a French editor and publisher. He is best known for his extraordinarily lavishly illustrated editions of Jules Verne's novels, highly prized by collectors today. Biography Born in Ch ...

bought the manuscript and assigned it to Jules Verne for revisions. It was published in 1884 under Verne's name as the twenty-fifth novel in the ''

Voyages extraordinaires The ''Voyages extraordinaires'' (; ) is a Collection (publishing), collection or novel sequence, sequence of novels and short story, short stories by the French writer Jules Verne. Fifty-four of these novels were originally published between 1 ...

'' series. In 2014, the

Musée Jules Verne The Musée Jules Verne is a museum dedicated to the French writer Jules Verne. It is located in the city of Nantes, France, and was opened in 1978 to mark the 150th anniversary of Verne's birth. The painter Jean Bruneau, helped by Luce Courville, ...

acquired Grousset's original manuscript. In 2020 a project was launched to prepare a

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

of the manuscript, demonstrating the changes credited to Verne (whose own manuscript version is still missing and presumed lost), in association with the Musée and with the

University of Nantes The University of Nantes (french: Université de Nantes) is a public university located in the city of Nantes, France. In addition to the several campuses scattered in the city of Nantes, there are two satellite campuses located in Saint-Nazaire ...

Adaptations

'' The Southern Star'' (French title: ''L'Étoile du sud'') is a 1969 British-French comedy crime film based on the novel, directed by Sidney Hayers and starring George Segal, Ursula Andress and Orson Welles. French cartoonist Jacques Rémise adapted the story into a newspaper comic between 1956-1957.

Sources

External links

* Original text of the novel in French on Wikisource.
L'Étoile du sud, audio version
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanished Diamond, The 1884 French novels 1884 science fiction novels French novels adapted into films Novels adapted into comics French science fiction novels Novels set in South Africa Novels by Jules Verne