Their Island Home

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IN a long preface to the original French edition of this story—too long to be given in full here— M. Jules Verne tells how the stories of "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Swiss Family Robinson" were the books of his childhood, and of the imperishable impression they made upon his mind.They influenced his bent in literature to a very marked extent—not only the two books named, but imitations such as "The Twelve-Year-old Robinson," "The Robinson of the Desert," and "The Adventures of Robert Robert," half-forgotten, perhaps now completely forgotten, French stories for young readers, and an island story of Fenimore Cooper's, "The Crater," which it is safe to say has not been read by one person for every hundred who have rejoiced in the great Leatherstocking series.To this influence we owe "The Mysterious Island" and "Godfrey Morgan." There were also "The Robinsons at School" and "Two Years' Holidays," which have not yet appeared in English form. The author does not mention "Godfrey Morgan," by the way, but that book must surely be classed with these.Jules Verne found the part of "Robinson Crusoe" which deals with the island "a masterpiece which is merely an episode in a long and tedious tale." But he drew delight from every page of "The Swiss Family Robinson." He came to believe, he says, that New Switzerland was a real island and he felt that the story did not really end with the arrival of the Unicorn. The surface of the island had not been fully explored.Fritz, Frank, and Jenny Montrose had gone to Europe. They must have had adventures, and those adventures ought to be told. So he felt that he positively must write about them.One can guess that the romancer of Amiens got out of his work upon this book—"Their Island Home" —and its sequel—"The Castaways of the Flag"—a pleasure at least equal to that he derived from the writing of any of the numerous volumes which have enchanted generations of boys. All his stories were very real to him; but one doubts whether any other was quite so real as these two, whether even Captain Nemo or Dick Sands were quite as dear to him as the Wolstons and the Zermatts.The author of the original work was Rudolph Wyss, who was born at Berne in 1781, and died in 1860. The book which made him a popular author was not his only one, but the others seem to have been more the product of his mind as a professor than of his imaginative faculties, and they do not matter here. "The Swiss Family Robinson" was published (in German) at Zurich in 1812, and a first French translation appeared in 1813. The English version could not have been very long after this, and the book has maintained its popularity in England as in France and Switzerland, doubtless as in a dozen other countries.