মরুশহর

The volume to which this is a sequel—Into the Niger Bend, published in the same collection—describes the adventures of a group of travellers as they penetrate into the African interior in order to ascertain whether its natives are fit to be granted the full rights of French citizens. Included among them are a gallant English girl who, with her eccentric uncle (or nephew!), is bent on a very different quest.

The investigators encounter not only the ordinary hardships of African travel: they hear inexplicable sounds and see inexplicable tracks, and finally are kidnapped in even more inexplicable circumstances.

A super-city in the desert, equipped with mechanical devices many of which were unknown in Verne’s day and some of which are unknown even now: a community of technicians directed by a scientist genius, but dominated by an outlaw gang headed by a desperado with a vicious grudge against society: such themes may have seemed incredible when this book was published—shortly after Verne’s death in 1905—and this may be the reason why it has, apparently, never previously been translated into English.

The delay in its translation was greatly to be regretted, for it meant that for the last fifty years the English-speaking world has been deprived of one of those masterpieces of science-fiction for which Verne was justly famous. It displays his creativeness at its best: above all his ingenuity and his prescience in describing mechanical devices many of which have since come into use. He seems to have wished The Barsac Mission to be the crowning achievement of his life, and this it most certainly is.