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00 - Introduction - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Classic Adventure Books Library

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