Four Complete Novels (U) - SKU 175216

Written in 1896, The Island of Dr. Moreau is one of the earliest scientific romances. An instant sensation, it was meant as a commentary on Darwin's theory of evolution, which H.G. Wells stoutly believed. The story centers on the depraved Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for conducting unspeakable animal experiments. He finds a deserted island where he can create a race of pseudo-humans out of the animals he found living there. Edward Prendick, an English-man whose misfortunes bring him to the island, is witness to the Beast Folk's strange civilization. Initially they befriend him. But as the stress of the abuse they endure continues, he witnesses the terrifying result of their struggle between the animal instinct and man's facade of civility, until they regress back to their original nonhuman nature and worse. While gene-splicing and bioengineering are common practices today, readers are still astounded at Wells's haunting vision and the ethical questions he raised a century before our time. This is one of Well's earliest and most sinister personifications of the scientific quest to control and manipulate the natural world, and, ultimate, human nature itself.