The Island of Doctor Moreau (The Penguin English Library)

Old school science fiction. Interesting to read what people thought was possible with biology back then- with no talk of cloning or genetic mutations. Still was a little twisted in parts, maybe not for the faint of heart.

I recommend H.G. Wells wholeheartedly. He is one of those authors who may not be up to date, but for the era in which these works were written, they are beautifully imaginative. It isn't to say that wells could do no wrong, i haven't read his entire catalog yet, but what i have read of his work has not been disappointing. don't expect the time machine to be anything like the newest time machine movie, and you will do fine. Wells is about taking you on an adventure. I found the island of dr. moreau to be a very entertaining and fairly quick read, and well worth the time. this is a book that i would read again if there weren't still so many incredible books out there that i need to get through first.

Reading The Island of Doctor Moreau for the first time was amazing. I've spent 30 plus years with every book I could find on our own ancient history trying to find out where we came from, and I can't help but wonder if H.G. Wells knew something of that history when he wrote his book. In Zacharia Sitchen's work we have the scientist Enki going off the experiment on the local animals to produce a hybrid between his species and the local ape-like creature to produce modern man. Is it merely a coincident or was Wells mining ancient cellular memories.

While Enki did gene-splicing and worked with his sister, (genesis means beginnings/gene of isis) Moreau had his drunken assistant Montgomery. In the Island, the Moreau predicts that the animals will revert back to animals(mark of the beast he calls it) and they do once they see and taste blood. Is that Wells' commentary on mankind, that we revert to beasts once we taste blood(wars)? I also equated the Mark of the Beast that Wells talked about with Revelation and the dreaded Mark Of The Beast which is thought to be a computer chip to some. Maybe it's just us turning back into the beasts our creators brought us up from. Tasting blood does seem to turn us into beasts.

I think this book should be read with Sitchen's work to see the parallels of how we might have been brought up from beasts by a consciousless creator to satisfy his curiosity and test his skills. How Moreau's assistant felt sympathy for the beasts and wanted to teach and befriend them. Enki was sympathetic to his 'beast creations' and wanted to save them from his brother Enlil. Enlil wanted to destroy the beasts(flood) because they sickened him and the beasts wouldn't follow the Law.

Spoiler-read no further.

I especially liked how when Moreau was killed by one of his beasts, Montgomery told the beasts that Moreau wasn't dead he'd just dropped his form to go up to heaven, and that the law still applied, and their creator would be watching from above. Sounds just like a priest trying to stay in power and keep the beasts, who were in the majority from killing him.

When Pendrick finally gets off the island, he finds he can no longer live with the rest of humanity because he keeps seeing a shadow of the beast in their faces. Absolutely amazing book. Read it and have it haunt you for the rest of your life.

When I Dream

I imagine the world when this was written was not so very different from the modern one in which we live today. Wells very aptly caught a glimpse of the animal potential within all of us and captured it poignantly on the pages of this book. It's intriguing and scary and delightful and awful - all at once. Read it with an eye for fiction and and a creatively thought up story, and you won't be disappointed. Read it again with an eye for the culture of the people around you, and again you won't be disappointed. Read it a third time with an eye for the image of God, carefully crafted into each one of us by a loving God, with an eye for the way in which our choices to sin have marred that lovely image, and with an eye for the uniqueness of that image (such that not even one like Dr. Moreau could reproduce), and - again - you won't be disappointed. Recommended.

I purchased this book because I had previously bought the book "Anne of the Island", which is the 3rd book in the Anne of Green Gables series, and this one, "Anne 's house of Dream's' is the "4th" and was published by the same company as the third book I previously mentioned. So, it just picked up where the third book had left off and continued the saga of Anne and Gilbert Blythe. Also, I like the fact this book was a hardcover edition and reasonably priced as well. You might want to purchase "both" books together if you like the Anne of Green Gable series: "Anne of the Island" and "Anne's House of Dream's".

The mad scientist has been with us since the early 1800s. And while H.G. Wells didn't create the mad scientist stereotype, he certainly gave it a boost in his harrowing novella "The Island of Dr. Moreau" -- beast-men forced to live like humans, a crazy scientist carrying out mad plans, and a bland Englishman stuck in the middle of it.

After he is shipwrecked, the English gentleman Edward Prendick is rescued by a passing boat. The man who saved him, Montgomery, is taking a number of wild animals to a remote deserted island, where the creepy Dr. Moreau does some kind of research on the animals that are brought there. Naturally, Prendick is suspicious of Moreau's activities.

It doesn't take long for him to stumble across the products of Moreau's work -- grotesque hybrids of animal and human, who are surgically turned into humanoids and ordered not to act in animalistic ways. And with the laws of nature being horribly perverted, it's only a matter of time before Dr. Moreau's experiments lash out.

It's pretty obvious from this book that H.G. Wells was nervous about the ramifications of meddling in nature -- be it vivisection, evolutionary degeneration, or even just the idea that scientific progress could be used for horribly evil things. As a result, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" is perhaps his darkest, most horrific book.

The first couple chapters are rather stuffy in the 18th-century style, with Prendrick fussily noting everything that's happened to him. But the creepiness begins to enter once he arrives on the island, and explodes into weird, almost dreamlike scenes once he encounters the Beast Folk, culminating in the slow decay of everything on the island.

Prendrick is also perhaps the weakest link in the book. When the only other humans on the island are.... well, a mad scientist and his sidekick, you need a protagonist who really grips your imagination. But he's honestly kind of bland, to the point where any number of the beastly folk have far more presence and power than he does.

"The Island of Dr. Moreau" is a dark, eerie cautionary tale about science run amuck, and only its bland protagonist keeps it from fully engaging.

Bought these books for my daughter for Christmas. She has always been an Anne of Avonlea/Green Gables fan. She LOVED the movies as a child, and I'm certain she will love these books as well... Thanks!

I enjoyed this book very much. I was completely engulfed in the story, seeing the entire thing in my mind's eye. I had trouble putting it down to get on with the necessaries of life.

For the first time in her life, Anne experiences true tragedy. She attains a new maturity, without losing her dreams entirely. I would not read this with young children, but a child of 10+ years will understand the story and the tragedy without having to ask you a bunch of questions.

If you consider yourself a fan of the science fiction genre, then you need to read H.G. Wells’ Island Of Dr. Moreau. Even if you are a fan of vivisection, this book is great for you. Prendick, a survivor of a shipwreck and the protagonist of the story, finds himself stranded on an island with the mad scientist Dr. Moreau and his alcoholic assistant Montgomery. This isn’t the normal, Victor Frankenstein/Henry Jekyll run of the mill eccentric mad scientist. Moreau is a monster, who creates other monsters by grafting the skin of animals until they resemble the human form. He has made a tribe of these mutated creatures that inhabit his island: the Beast People.

Wells portrays an even darker view of society, the God complex, and consequences of science in his novel. He ridicules religion, but not in an offensive way, since he does not target a specific religion. This the beauty of his ridicule. In the novel, Doctor Moreau forced a set of laws onto his creations, in order to make them more human and less beast. He didn’t recognize the obvious problem with his plan: animals cannot be human. A person’s true self, or an animal’s instincts, cannot be transformed because religion tells them too. Religion, especially when forced, can cause internal identity struggles within the person. A person’s true nature eventually wins.

Wells also raises the question of the morals of scientific advancement. How far should humans go when experimenting on animals, or if they should do it at all? Scientists experimenting on lab rats is not totally ideal since they are living beings, but society usually stomachs it. When scientists are willing to hurt others to prove their hypothesis, then are they really any better than Moreau? Speaking of the mad scientist, Moreau’s indifference to the pain of his creations and his passion for making an ideal human, caused him to neglect the Beast People. This point echoes to society, especially the powerful members. A human cannot be a god and should not try to be one. Like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, creations do destroy their creator when they are neglected.

This book is a personal favorite of mine, not because of the disturbing imagery or the tragic irony, but because Wells reveals what’s wrong with society, and then offers a positive glimmer before the book is finished. Then, the audience doesn’t get totally depressed. At the end of the novel, Wells inspires hope in his audience. His main character, Prendick commented “There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope. I hope, or I could not live”. (Wells 156). After all the death and violence, even Wells thinks there is still hope in humanity. We just have to never lose it.

This whole series is absolutely fabulous! Beginning with book one, "Anne of Green Gables". When I have finished reading one book and move on to the next in the series I tell myself, "this couldn't possibly be as good as the last Book". But somehow each and every time it just gets better and better! I am on book six and still very impressed by the rich development of characters in each book, the joy and laughter you experience along their journey, and the sorrows also! So special!

Wells did it again!
The surprise ending was OUT OF THIS WORLD!
You have got to read it!
I love it when an author ties a previous work in to what you are reading.
Mr. Wells you are still giving MEGA pleasure.

This "oldie but goodie" definitely deserves a second look! The characters, settings and narratives are riveting and pull the reader deeper into this story. A shipwrecked passenger is saved by a boat populated with mysterious people and many animals. When the boat docks at an odd tropical island, this passenger is forced to disembark and faces frightening and unusual surroundings and inhabitants. A sinister scientist has been experimenting with animals, and the results are found to be grotesque. The implications of interfering with natures take on massive proportions in this classic. Highly recommended.

The Island of Dr. Moreau has influenced many movies, books and television shows. Think Sliders, The Simpsons, MST3K, South Park, the Uplife novels, the anime Blue Submarine 6 and comic book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II.
Yet the story seems bland and boring. The main character is a young naturalist, Edward Prendick, is shipwrecked and ends up on a island where Dr. Moreau is testing the limits of creation. The Doctor is trying to uplife animals into the sphere of man - giving them the power of thought and speak, changing their bodies so they can walk on two legs and grab with two hands. He rules them like a God, promisng them pain and fire if they disobey. He acts without pity or mercy, more like a beast than a human scientist.
But what happens when God dies and there is nobody to punish them?
Edward Prendick seems somewhat stupid and sometimes spineless. Only in the end does he try to take command of the events flowing past him and he still fails in the end to tame the uplifted animals.

H.G. wells, one of the fathers of science fiction creates a beautifully sadistic world in the island of Dr. Moreau, sadly enough is mirrors our own. The horrors you read about, or the he wrote about you can see in everyday life. The Book came in a prestine condition, all the pages where there cover to cover. The book also came sooner then the "expected date or arrival"

A surprisingly forward looking work by Wells. Although a short novel, it is definitely in the style of a novel not a short story. The premise s clever and has been explored by other authors since this one. The irony is that, with so much of the work of Wells, he was very forward looking, and today some of his premise, although total fiction in his time, is becoming reality in the present day.

At times, something of a horror story, at others a gripping novel of what could be. The ending leaves the reader with some thought provoking questions.

I was super excited to read this book, knowing that Anne and Gilbert would finally be married in it.

Little did I know that Anne would become totally boring once she got married, that L.M. would completely lose the magic that is anything about Anne, and that the folks in Avonlea would get maybe five brief mentions each in the book. (I exaggerate, but only slightly.)

This entire book was about the other characters in their new location. Anne and Gilbert may as well have been minor incidental characters. It'd be like if Jane Austen had done a follow-up to Pride and Prejudice and then took Elizabeth and Darcy almost completely out of it, when THOSE TWO are the ones you want to read about.

Extremely disappointing.

Anyone even moderately literate should be familiar with the premise of this 19th century "classic" by renowned science fiction author H. G. Wells. Young man is shipwrecked, rescued and finds himself on a South Pacific island, inhabited by prototypical mad scientist Dr. Moreau. Moreau is a vivisectionist who has created a variety of "beasts" through efforts to convert animals to humans. Mayhem ensues.

Wells and contemporary Jules Verne have been hailed as visionaries, men ahead of their times. Of the two, Wells's work has arguably aged more gracefully. While I found this book moderately entertaining, the premise was simply too absurd to draw me in. I could swallow some of the physiological biology, however at the point where animals began speaking as well educated Englishmen, Wells lost me.

Certainly, the underlying theme has resonance today, in an era of increasing bio-medical engineering, and certainly, social commentary was among Wells's strong suits. However, in my opinion, this novella (175 pages) simply doesn't rate the accolades it has garnered.

I find that this book quickly puts Prendick into action, and does not rely upon the devices of a simple mind that grows more adept, but gives us an educated mind and that is thrown into scarcely believable situations that certainly leave their mark. The chapter wherein Moreau explains himself to Prendick is, at times, a great study of humanity and science. The book relies heavily upon the readers imagination to concoct the horrors rather display them in complete or overly graphic detail. The human characters are great, and the beast men characters removed the fantasy I enjoyed from a movie version of the book. I sensed the tragedy so profoundly, especially when Penderecki voices his repulsion at the lack of an object, or goal, to the work of Dr Moreau. This is a great read. I understand why it is a classic.