With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Emily Alder, Lecturer in Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University
'Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of burning pain, I
say: this time I will burn out all the animal, this time I will make a
rational creature of my own!' declares Doctor Moreau to hapless narrator
Edward Prendick.
Moreau's highly controversial methods and ambitions conflict with the
religious, moral and scientific norms of his day and Wells later called The Island of Doctor Moreau
'a youthful exercise in blasphemy'. Today his vivid depictions of the
Beast People still strike modern readers with an uncanny glimpse of the
animal in the human, while the behaviour of humans leave us wondering
who is the most monstrous after all.
This volume unites four of Wells' liveliest and most engaging tales
of the strange evolution and behaviour of animals - including human
beings. The Island of Doctor Moreau is followed by three fantastic yet
chillingly plausible short stories of human-animal encounters. The Empire of the Ants
is a darkly humorous account of intelligent Amazonian ants threatening
to displace humans as 'the lords of the future and masters of the
earth'. In The Sea Raiders, the south coast of England is terrorized by an unwelcome visit from deep-sea predator Haploteuthis ferox, while AEpyornis Island provides a marooned egg collector with an unusual companion.
