
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Part 1: The English at the North Pole
by Jules Verne
'The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Part 1: The English at the North Pole' Summary
The novel, set in 1861, described adventures of British expedition led by Captain John Hatteras to the North Pole. Hatteras is convinced that the sea around the pole is not frozen and his obsession is to reach the place no matter what. Mutiny by the crew results in destruction of their ship but Hatteras, with a few men, continues on the expedition. On the shore of the island of "New America (Actually New Foundland)" he discovers the remains of a ship used by the previous expedition from the United States. Doctor Clawbonny recalls in mind the plan of the real Ice palace, constructed completely from ice in Russia in 1740 to build a snow-house, where they should spend a winter. The travellers winter on the island and survive mainly due to the ingenuity of Doctor Clawbonny (who is able to make fire with an ice lens, make bullets from frozen mercury and repel attacks by polar bears with remotely controlled explosions of black powder).
When the winter ends the sea becomes ice-free. The travellers build a boat from the shipwreck and head towards the pole. Here they discover an island, an active volcano, and name it after Hatteras. With difficulty a fjord is found and the group get ashore. After three hours climbing they reach the mouth of the volcano. The exact location of the pole is in the crater and Hatteras jumps into it. As the sequence was originally written, Hatteras perishes in the crater; Verne's editor, Jules Hetzel, suggested or rather required that Verne do a rewrite so that Hatteras survives but is driven insane by the intensity of the experience, and after return to England he is put into an asylum for the insane. Losing his "soul" in the cavern of the North Pole, Hatteras never speaks another word. He spends the remainder of his days walking the streets surrounding the asylum with his faithful dog Duke. While mute and deaf to the world, Hatteras' walks are not without a direction. As indicated by the last line "Captain Hatteras forever marches northward".
Book Details
Author

Jules Verne
France
Verne is considered to be an important author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation was markedly different in an...
More on Jules VerneDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books

An Outcast Of The Islands by Joseph Conrad
It follows the story of Willems, a European trader who finds himself in the middle of a dangerous and complex situation in a remote island community....

Deephaven by Sarah Orne Jewett
"It seemed as if all the clocks in Deephaven, and all the people with them, had stopped years ago, and the people had been doing over and over what th...

The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Part 2: The Field of Ice by Jules Verne
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is an adventure novel by Jules Verne in two parts: The English at the North Pole (French: Les Anglais au pôle nord)...

Sight Unseen by Mary Roberts Rinehart
It is a thrilling mystery novel that follows the story of a young woman named Judith and her fiancé as they investigate a series of strange occurrence...

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
An adventure novel with an unexpected hero, Captain Blood follows the unintended journey of chivalrous and well-educated gentleman Peter Blood, who wi...

A Voyage to the Moon by Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano attempts to reach the Moon to prove there is a civilization that sees the Earth as its own moon. He launches himself into the sky from Paris by...

The Cruise of the Dazzler by Jack London
The Cruise of the Dazzler is an early novel by Jack London, set in his home city of San Francisco. It is considered a boy's adventure novel. In th...

The Yosemite by John Muir
The Yosemite by John Muir was published in 1912. Born in Scotland, England, this world-famous conservationist was a multi-talented genius. He was a ge...

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville
Benito Cereno takes place in 1799. The captain of a sealing ship Bachelor’s Delight, Captain Amasa Delano, spots another ship drifting listlessly towa...

The Wreck of the Golden Mary by Charles Dickens
A short story of a ship wreck in 1851 trying to round Cape Horn on its way to the California gold fields. Poignant and well written.
Reviews for The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Part 1: The English at the North Pole
No reviews posted or approved, yet...