The Island of Dr. Moreau in The Evolution of Science Fiction

From the Bookshelf of The Evolution of Science Fiction…

The Island of Dr. Moreau

H.G. Wells,

Alan Lightman (Introduction)

Start date: June 1, 2015

Finish date: June 30, 2015

Discussion: Group Reads 2019

Why we're reading this: This was chosen by the group to read in June 2015.
[close] This was chosen by the group to read in June 2015.

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What Members Thought

Aug 04, 2023 RJ - Slayer of Trolls rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: guardian-1000-read, 1001-books-read

There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. 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.

The second of H.G. Wells' major "scientific romances" was published a year after The Time Machine but was not as well received at that time, despite the fact ...more

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Apr 05, 2018 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, 1audio, 2fiction, 3classics, scifi

This is a truly horrible & disgusting book in so many ways that it's difficult to even read. I think it is supposed to look at what it is that makes us human & showcases the very worst, yet it is worth reading for all that. It's short & the main character, certainly no hero, is the best of the bunch which isn't saying much.

The Victorian-Christian egotism permeates the story. The scientific Englishman is the height of civilization. Moreau takes science to the extreme using vivisection to combine ...more

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Apr 27, 2018 Oleksandr Zholud rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is a classic SF/horror by H.G. Wells, originally published in 1896. I鈥檝e re-read it to recall the details and style prior to reading 2022 SF publication The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This is a rather short novel, written as a memoir of Edward Prendick.

The story starts with Prendick being shipwrecked and then rescued by a passing ship. Among the ship鈥檚 passengers is one Montgomery and his (black?) servant M'ling, whose grotesque body disgusts and frightens the narra This is a classic SF/horror by H.G. Wells, originally published in 1896. I鈥檝e re-read it to recall the details and style prior to reading 2022 SF publication The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This is a rather short novel, written as a memoir of Edward Prendick.

The story starts with Prendick being shipwrecked and then rescued by a passing ship. Among the ship鈥檚 passengers is one Montgomery and his (black?) servant M'ling, whose grotesque body disgusts and frightens the narrator. Currently, it may be read as an extremely racist attitude to 鈥榮avages鈥�, but I doubt it was the author鈥檚 intention. The ship is also transporting a number of Montgomery鈥檚 animals and the always-drunk captain is not happy with the arrangement, so upon approaching their destination, both passengers, cargo and Prendick are almost literally thrown from the ship. The island belongs to one Dr. Moreau, who had to allow the narrator in.

Prendick starts living on the island, surprised and frightened by a large number of grotesque humans there. He recalls, where he heard the good doctor's name:
鈥淭he Moreau Horrors!鈥� The phrase drifted loose in my mind for a moment, and then I saw it in red lettering on a little buff-coloured pamphlet, to read which made one shiver and creep. Then I remembered distinctly all about it. That long-forgotten pamphlet came back with startling vividness to my mind. I had been a mere lad then, and Moreau was, I suppose, about fifty,鈥攁 prominent and masterful physiologist, well-known in scientific circles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal directness in discussion.

Was this the same Moreau? He had published some very astonishing facts in connection with the transfusion of blood, and in addition was known to be doing valuable work on morbid growths. Then suddenly his career was closed. He had to leave England. A journalist obtained access to his laboratory in the capacity of laboratory-assistant, with the deliberate intention of making sensational exposures; and by the help of a shocking accident (if it was an accident), his gruesome pamphlet became notorious. On the day of its publication a wretched dog, flayed and otherwise mutilated, escaped from Moreau鈥檚 house.

While the methods of Dr Moreau are not grounded in our current knowledge of biology and other sciences so that they can be considered a fantasy, not SF these days, the book sets questions about human nature, what defines it as well as tries to suggest possible roots for religion and the nature of sin. While the creation of new beings was in the earlier, proto-SF, first of all in Frankestein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, here Wells looks much deeper into experiences of these new creations.

The style, actions and reactions of characters sometimes felt dated, it is definitely one of the founding blocks of SF as a genre.

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Nov 12, 2011 Tomislav rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, read-2-times

second read - 12 November 2011 - ****. I found the science of this 1896 novel - physical transformation of animals into men through vivisection and mental transformation through hypnosis, and Wells' idea that the only thing preventing speech by animals to be the absence of a physiologically developed larynx - to be quaint. But this is not hard sf, it is social sf.

On the one level this is an effective horror/thriller written in the context of the Victorian England. But I feel the parallels of the ...more

5 likes · Like · see review