#Ghoulvember ‘The Island Of Dr Moreau’ by H.G Wells

About the book…

A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palmy paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human & then “beastly” in ways they never were before – -it’s the stuff of high adventure. It’s also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels & a bloody tale of horror.

As Wells himself wrote: “The Island of Dr. Moreau is an exercise in youthful blasphemy. Now & then, tho I rarely admit it, the universe projects itself towards me in a hideous grimace. It grimaced that time, & I did my best to express my vision of the aimless torture in creation.”

This colorful tale by the author of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man & The War of the Worlds lit a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication in 1896

My copy of this seminal classic, is the Wordsworth Edition

This was published in 2017 and is introduced by Dr Emily Alder , I just happen to like the Penguin Cover a bit more!

As a reader, it is recommended that you read each of the 4 included tales, and then the explanatory notes in the forward, afterward. This was my preferred method of experiencing this novel, I thought I knew it, I thought I had read it, but it soon became clear that I had not.

The story is a Frankenstein-esque tale of what would now be considered ‘found footage’, in other words, it is a story, released with caution by the narrator’s nephew, in order to support his dubious and bizarre tale.

Charles Prendick, the nephew of Edward Prendick, presents the happenings of the year between his uncle being lost, and then found, in the vicinity of Noble Island. What it reveals is so shocking, so fantastic and so antithetical to any thing in nature that I can see why it was so shocking, so disturbing, and still resonates today.

Rescued from a ship wreck by a ginger bearded madman, with animals in the hold and a strange, hunched figure at the mast of the boat, Prendick has no idea that he would be better off left to the less than tender mercies of the sea that wrecked his ship, the Lady Vain.

He is within metres of an island which he has never seen, and is unceremoniously dumped once again, by fiercely bearded Montgomery, who raves about this being the last time he runs errands on this route. What Prendick does not understand, apart from why there are stag hounds and a caged puma on the boat, is that the horror awaiting him on the island is worse than anything that you can imagine.

The rabbits that Montgomery lets run loose upon landing, which Prendick sees run off into the woods, the strange noises he hears and the islanders themselves defy any description. He tells the reader that he is a dabbler in science, a man of strong morals and convictions, a man who does not drink. Therefore we, the readers, should pay close attention to what he is saying and trust him.

He is soon introduced to a figure who he recognises as someone from a headline half remembered, and when it comes to him, he reels in shock. This man, Moreau, was more or less forced to leave England after a journalist, reporting on his experiments in transfusions, discovered an abomination of a dog, mutilated and suffering in his lab.

Here, on the island, he is not just re-creating himself as a god like figure with control over the natural order. He believes that the difference between animals and humans is a line he can cross, there are animals which can be ‘made’ in alternative forms, cut and sewn together into abominable figures. What he does is unspeakable, he creates The Law which tells them all the things that they cannot do. Like walking on all fours. Or eating with their teeth off the bone.

This status quo cannot last forever, but Edward narrates every mutation he sees, and how the effect it has on him is completely irreversible. He is eventually rescued , I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it by saying how. The 11 months he spent there, and what he left behind him are bizarre, inexplicable and go against every natural law. The details and underlying rhetoric explored by H.G Wells are sophisticated and challenge , in their own way, the social, religious and cultural themes of its time.

If man is made in the image of god, shouldn’t we therefore become creators ourselves?

Horrific, moving and unforgettable, I thought I knew this book, but I was mixing this up with the cultural awareness of what Dr Moreau represents. And I have discovered that this story is so very readable, moving and deeply affecting.

About the author….

Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper’s apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an “usher,” or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).

Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to “indiscriminate”) love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a “divine will” in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.

He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as “The Fathers of Science Fiction”. D. 1946.

Links-https://wordsworth-editions.com/