Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery , also published as Godfrey Morgan, School for Robinsons, and School for Crusoes, is an adventure novel

Adventure novel

The adventure novel is a genre of novels that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme.-History:...

 by French writer Jules Verne

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

 first published in 1882

1882 in literature

The year 1882 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*F. Anstey - Vice Versa*Walter Besant - The Revolt of Man*Bankim Chatterjee - Anandmath*Richard Doddridge Blackmore -Christowell*Wilkie Collins - After Dark...

. It tells of a young adventurer, Godfrey Morgan, and his deportment instructor, Professor T. Artelett, who embark on a round-the-world ocean voyage. Their ship is wrecked and they are cast away

Castaway

A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island, either to evade their captors or the world in general. Alternatively, a person or item can be cast away, meaning rejected or discarded...

 on a remote island, where they rescue and befriend an African slave, Carefinotu.

The novel is a robinsonade

Robinsonade

Robinsonade is a literary genre that takes its name from the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The success of this novel spawned enough imitations that its name was used to define a genre, which is sometimes described simply as a "desert island story"...

—a play on Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...

's 1719

1719 in literature

The year 1719 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Nicholas Rowe's widow receives a pension from King George I in recognition of her husband's translation of Lucan's Pharsalia....

 novel Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...

.

Plot summary

Godfrey, an idle twenty-two-year-old, lives with his uncle, the wealthy Lord William W. Kolderup. Prior to marrying the young and pretty Phina, he asked to undertake a sea voyage of two years. Acceding to his desire, his uncle sends him around the world on board the Dream, commanded by Captain Turcott, with his mentor, teacher, and dance instructor, Professor T. Artelett aka "Tartlet". Unfortunately, the ship sinks a few miles from an island where Godfrey will have to learn to survive, to organize his life, face the savages, and overcome other obstacles—together with Tartlet, the only other survivor of the sinking Dream. Faced with this, the jaded young man discovers the value of effort and gains poise and courage.

Film adaptation

The novel was adapted for a 1981 USA/Spain co-production by director Juan Piquer Simón

Juan Piquer Simón

Juan Piquer Simón was a Spanish film director most well known for directing the cult classic horror exploitation films, Pieces and Slugs: The Movie ....

, titled Jules Verne's Mystery on Monster Island , and starring Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

 and Terrence Stamp, Ian Sera, and David Hatton in cameo, but significant, roles. Monsters were prominently included as an element in the film, but were absent from the novel. In 2007 the film was released on DVD as part of a double feature

Double feature

The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...

.

Connection to The Mysterious Island

Despite a similar sounding name to the English language title of the film, there is no connection to the better known Verne novel, The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though thematically it is...

. Despite this, some reviewers claim it to be, and then proceed to criticize the film's story for not following that book's plot.

External links

(English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

)

• École des Robinsons (L') - 1882, summary and cover images