An Antarctic Mystery

Jules Verne

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Book Summary

An Antarctic Mystery (French: Le Sphinx des glaces, The Sphinx of the Ice Fields) is a two-volume novel by Jules Verne. Written in 1897, it is a response to Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It follows the adventures of the narrator and his journey from the Kerguelen Islands aboard Halbrane. Their works are some of the few literary (as opposed to exploratory) references to the archipelago. The story is set in 1839, eleven years after the events in Arthur Gordon Pym, one year after the publication of that book. Volume 1: The narrator is a wealthy American Jeorling, who has entertained himself with private studies of the wildlife on the Kerguelen Islands and is now looking for a passage back to the United States. Halbrane is one of the first ships to arrive at Kerguelen, and its captain Len Guy somewhat reluctantly agrees to have Jeorling as a passenger as far as Tristan da Cunha. Volume 2: At this point, Hunt is revealed to be Dirk Peters.

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