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 distributed to the wrong audience. Nabokov would later lament that "Despair" was "a rhinoceros in a world of hummingbirds". Nabokov intended Hermann, and the novel in general, to be kind of a Dostoevskian (who is referred to as "Dusky and Dusty" in the novel) parody; this is even more evident as the original working title for the novel was to be "Zapiski mistifikatora" ("Notes of a Hoaxer"), akin to Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground". At one particular, Hermann even contemplates titling his narrative "The Double", before he realizes it has been used, and opts for "Despair" instead. Nabokov infamously despised