Audiobook · read by volunteers
Antarctic Mystery, or The Sphinx of the Ice Fields
Jules Verne (1828–1905)
Read by Esther · 31 chapters · 8 h 19
About the book
In 1838 Edgar Allan Poe published the narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the story of a voyage to the far south that ended in mystery. Nearly sixty years later Jules Verne takes up the challenge. An American traveller in the Southern Ocean finds evidence that Pym’s story may be true. Captain Len Guy, searching for the fate of his brother and the ship Jane, sets out for the polar ice aboard the schooner Halbrane. Along the way come storms, mutiny, strange islands and clues that point toward a terrible truth. Antarctic Mystery is a tale of exploration and suspense that continues another writer’s story with a scientist’s curiosity and an adventurer’s zest. Translated by Frances Cashel Hoey, it fills more than eight hours with adventure. Two great storytellers meet at the edge of the map.
Introduction
Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French writer, best known for his Voyages Extraordinaires, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days. Antarctic Mystery, known in French as Le Sphinx des glaces, appeared in 1897, and the English translation by Frances Cashel Hoey was published in 1899. It is Verne’s tribute to Poe, whom he admired, and an unusual case of one novelist completing the story of another.
The recording begins on the Kerguelen Islands and introduces the schooner Halbrane and her captain. The thirty-one recordings take the crew across the Antarctic waters, where the line between fact and fantasy blurs. Readers who have met Poe’s original may enjoy the echoes, but the book is also complete in itself. Verne’s interest in science and geography is always present, and his fast-moving plot makes it a satisfying adventure for both young readers and adults.
The story ends in a long, dramatic sequence that has fascinated readers for generations, and the strangeness of its final chapters is part of the appeal. This is an excellent choice for fans of polar exploration, sea stories and classic science-minded adventure.
Thirty-one recordings, about 8.3 hours in all, are read by a single LibriVox volunteer. Some chapters, such as Land? and “Unmerciful Disaster”, are split into two or three parts, so there are natural places to stop, though the closing recordings, from Amid the Mists to A Little Remnant, are best heard close together. Verne’s own title, The Sphinx of the Ice Fields, hints at the riddle at the heart of the book, and chapter titles such as Edgar Poe’s Romance and And Pym show how closely he ties his story to Poe’s. Listeners who have not read Poe can still follow, since the book sets out what it needs.
Public domain
Jules Verne died in 1905: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text