The Island Of Dr Moreau

A man - he is also the narrator of the story - finds himself in a lifeboat with two other men after their ship, the Lady in Vain, has sunk. After some days drifting through the sea the two other men start to struggle for water, fall over board and drown. The narrator himself is saved by a ship called the Ipecacuahna, a little trader from Arica and Callao in South America.

When Prendick, that is the narrators name, regains consciousness he finds himself in a small cabin. There is a man who has looked after him while he was unconscious, his name is Montgomery. Prendick is so far recovered that he is able to leave the room. He learns that the ship is bound for Hawaii, but that it has to land Montgomery on a small island without a name first. When they leave the cabin they encounter a misshapen man, short, broad and clumsy, with a crooked back, a hairy neck and a head sunk between his shoulders. Also his face is deformed and in his huge mouth there are big white teeth. Then they go up to the deck of the ship. It is full of animals, there are staghounds, a puma, some rabbits and a llama, but Montgomery doesnt tell Prendick what they are for. Then the strange misshapen man appears again. He is persued by a red haired man who ill-treats him.

Montgomery tells the red haired drunk man, who is the captain of the ship, not to assault his passengers and they start to quarrel. The next morning they reach the island and Montgomery and his men are unloading the deck. The drunk captain is happy that they leave his ship and forces Prendick to leave the ship too. Montgomery and the others dont want him to go to the island so the captain throws him into a lifeboat and cuts the rope. Prendick drifts away but then Montgomery takes pity and rescues him by picking him up with the landingboat. There is a white-haired man on board, who seems to be the the most important of them, but the others all look very strange, like the misshapen man they have met before, and they seem to be mere servants of Montgomery. They land. The white haired man tells Prendick that this is some sort of a biological station and that there passes a ship only every twelve month. There is an enclosure of coral and lave and Prendick gets a room with one door to the inside and one to the outside of the enclosure. The white haired man - Prendick learns by accident that his name is Moreau - tells him not to go inside the enclosure and locks the inner door. Then Prendick remembers where he has heard the name Moreau before: Moreau once was a great physiologist, but he had to leave England because of his cruel experiments with animals. Then Montgomery and Prendick take lunch and they can hear the howling of the Puma. Prendick cant stand it any more and goes for a walk into the forest. There he encounters a half-beastial man drinking at the river and then disappearing in the bushes. Later, Prendick finds a killed rabbit and then he encounters three of these beastial looking men dancing and ...