Audiobook · read by volunteers
Island of Doctor Moreau
H. G. Wells (1866–1946)
Read by Alex Patterson, madeupname, Laura M.D., bignate_2000, Cori Samuel, martyd, Stephan Möbius, Meredith Hughes, John Gonzalez, Alex Foster · 23 chapters · 4 h 39
About the book
A shipwrecked man is rescued by a boat that carries a strange cargo of animals and a sullen crew, and then taken to an island that does not appear on any chart. There he meets Doctor Moreau, a scientist who has left England under a cloud, and begins to discover what the doctor is doing in his laboratory. H. G. Wells wrote The Island of Doctor Moreau as a dark and thoughtful parable about science, cruelty and what separates a human from an animal. The narrator’s growing horror is told in a plain, almost documentary style, and the beasts who live under strict rules make a disturbing society. Twenty-three chapters and nearly five hours, shared among ten readers, deliver a short, disquieting classic of science fiction. It is short, strange and haunting.
Introduction
Herbert George Wells, who lived from 1866 to 1946, was an English writer who became one of the best-known figures of science fiction. The Island of Doctor Moreau, published in 1896, is an early work, written shortly after The Time Machine, and it deals with a set of ideas about society and community, human nature and identity, religion, Darwinism and eugenics.
When the novel was written, in the late nineteenth century, England’s scientific community was engulfed by debates on animal vivisection. Interest groups were even formed to tackle the issue: the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection was founded two years after the novel was published. Wells uses this atmosphere to build a story of an experimenter who tries to reshape animals into something like humans. The book is presented as a discovered manuscript, introduced by the narrator’s nephew, and it then transcribes the tale. This device gives the book an air of authenticity.
Readers have discussed the novel from many angles, as a warning about science without ethics, as a reflection on evolution, or as a satire of colonial power. Its images are strong and its pace is quick, and it has been adapted for the screen several times.
The LibriVox recording has twenty-three chapters and lasts about four hours and forty minutes. It is read by ten volunteers, among them Alex Patterson, madeupname and Laura M.D. It is a compact and unforgettable listen. Because the story is short and driven by suspense, it is easy to hear in a few sittings, yet its questions linger long afterwards.
Public domain
H. G. Wells died in 1946: 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