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The Island of Doctor Moreau Introduction · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section one of the Island of Doctor Moreau. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Tom Hare The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G.
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  Speaker 1: Wells introduction on February first, eighteen eighty seven. The Lady
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  Speaker 1: Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about
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  Speaker 1: the latitude one degree south and longitude one hundred seven
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  Speaker 1: degrees west on January the fifth, eighteen eighty seven, that is,
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  Speaker 1: eleven months and four days after my uncle Edward Prindick,
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  Speaker 1: a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain
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  Speaker 1: at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked
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  Speaker 1: up in latitude five degrees three minutes south and longitude
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  Speaker 1: one hundred one degrees west, in a small open boat,
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  Speaker 1: of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed
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  Speaker 1: to have belonged to the missing schooner, a Peccaquana. He
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  Speaker 1: gave such a strange account of himself that he was
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  Speaker 1: supposed de minted. Subsequently, he alleged that his mind was
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  Speaker 1: a blank from the moment of his escape from the
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  Speaker 1: Lady Vain. His case was discussed among psychologists at the
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  Speaker 1: time as a curious instance of the lapse of memory
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  Speaker 1: consequence upon physical and mental stress. The following narrative was
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  Speaker 1: found among his papers by the undersigned, his nephew an heir,
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  Speaker 1: but unaccompanied by any definite request for publication. The only
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  Speaker 1: island known to exist in the region at which my
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  Speaker 1: uncle was picked up his Noble's Isle, a small volcanic
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  Speaker 1: islet and uninhabited. It was visited in eighteen ninety one
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  Speaker 1: by Eachamas Scorpion. A party of sailors then landed, but
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  Speaker 1: found nothing living thereon except certain curious white moths, some
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  Speaker 1: hogs and rabbits, and some rather peculiar rats. So that
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  Speaker 1: this narrative is without confirmation in its most essential particular.
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  Speaker 1: With that understood, there seems no harm in putting this
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  Speaker 1: strange story before the public in accordance, as I believe,
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  Speaker 1: with my uncle's intentions, there is at least this much
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  Speaker 1: in its behalf. My uncle passed out of human knowledge
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  Speaker 1: about latitude five degrees south and longitude one hundred five
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  Speaker 1: degrees east, and reappeared in the same part of the
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  Speaker 1: ocean after a space of eleven months. In some way
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  Speaker 1: he must have lived during the interval. And it seems
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  Speaker 1: that a schooner called the Epecaquana, with the drunken Captain
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  Speaker 1: John Davies, did start from Africa with the puma and
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  Speaker 1: certain other animals aboard, in January eighteen eighty seven, and
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  Speaker 1: that the vessel was well known at several ports in
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  Speaker 1: the South Pacific, and that it finally disappeared from those seas,
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  Speaker 1: with a considerable amount of copra aboard, sailing to its
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  Speaker 1: unknown fate from Baina in December eighteen eighty seven, a
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  Speaker 1: date that tallies entirely with my uncle's story. Charles Edward Prindick.
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  Speaker 1: The Story written by Edward Prindick, end of Section one