Readings Classics: The Island of Doctor Moreau

Description

A man is discovered adrift in the wreckage of a boat, babbling of horrors scarcely imaginable…this is his story.

They say that terror is a disease…

A shipwrecked man finds himself, after various twists of Fate, on a lonely tropical island. From a locked enclosure the cries of animals in pain can be heard, and there is a stink of chemicals in the air. Bestial faces stare out of the forests and grotesque, misshaped creatures move in the gloom. In this island paradise, the horrific experiments of the infamous Doctor Moreau will reach their inevitable conclusion.

Disquieted and appalled by the pained cries of suffering animals, Edward soon realizes that the Doctor is continuing and developing his depraved experiments, and that he too is in great danger.

Shocking and suffused with contemporary fears regarding the morality of the latest advances in science and their possible implications for religion, Published in 1896, The Island of Doctor Moreau is one of the masterpieces of early science fiction. A superb macabre tale, it raises questions about the unbridled ambitions of human race on one hand and offers insight into the potential of science on the other. It has been adapted for visual media time and again.

Author Biography

H. G. Wells (Herbert George Wells) was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1866. After an education repeatedly interrupted by his family’s financial problems, he eventually found work as a teacher at a succession of schools, where he began to write his first stories. Wells became a prolific writer with a diverse output, of which the famous works are his science fiction novels. These are some of the earliest and most influential examples of the genre, and include classics such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. Most of his books very well-received, and had a huge influence on many younger writers, including George Orwell and Isaac Asimov. Wells also wrote many popular non-fiction books, and used his writing to support the wide range of political and social causes in which he had an interest, although these became increasingly eccentric towards the end of his life. Twice-married, Wells had many affairs, including a ten-year liaison with Rebecca West that produced a son. He died in London in 1946.