The Mysterious Island The Mysterious Island The Mysterious Island () is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "In Search of the Castaways", though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, initially rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled "Shipwrecked Family: Marooned With Uncle Robinson," seen as indicating the influence of the novels "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Swiss Family Robinson". Verne
Despair (novel) was his "first serious attempt... to use English for what may loosely termed an artistic purpose" and finished on December 29 later that year. Nabokov sent the manuscript to Hutchinson & Co. in April 1936 and although the company had initial reservations, eventually agreed to publish the book and the translation was checked by a Molly Carpenter-Lee, a student of Nabokov's friend Gleb Struve. The book was a complete flop commercially and Nabokov only earned €40, a minuscule amount, even in the 1930s. The issue was that Hutchinson's only published cheap, "popular" novels, which "Despair" was not and thus, it