PINOUtN f l E A O i n S
T h e I s l a n d of Dr M o r e a u H 6 w*
The Island of Doctor Moreau H.G.WELLS Level 3 Retold by Fiona Beddall Series Editors: Andy Hopkins andjocelyn Potter
S'
Contents
Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex C M 2 0 2 J E , England and Associated C o m p a n i e s throughout the world.
ipage
ISBN: 978-1-4058-8190-6 First published 2 0 0 7 T h i s edition published 2 0 0 8
Text copyright © Pearson Education Ltd 2 0 0 8 O r i g i n a l text: © T h e Literary Executors o f the Estate o f H . G , W e l l s Illustrations by David Kearney
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Set in l l / 1 4 p t B e m b o Printed in C h i n a
Introduction
V
('liapter
1 Lost and Found
1
("liapter
2 The Ipecacuanha
3
(chapter
3 Montgomery's island
6
('liapter
4 D r Moreau
10
(chapter
5 An Evening Walk
13
(chapter
6 Moreau's Laboratory
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( !li,ipter 7 Meeting the Animal-men
18
( liapter 8
22
O n the Beach
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( liapter 9 Moreau's Work
26
( liapter 10 T h e Taste o f Blood
28
1 liapter 11 T h e Puma Escapes
33
( 'liapter 12 T h e Search for Moreau
36
( liapter 13 Montgomery's Party
39
< liapter 14 Alone with the Animal-men
43
Ai livities
48
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Introduction M k' 'I'liiii is Just a little things, Prendick. While you worry about pain, yomare no better than an animal.' I ill ward Prendick is travelling in the South Pacific when his ship ^oes down. He is saved after many days at sea by another ship; .1 passenger, Montgomery, nurses him back to health. Prendick lu-comes interested in the mystery of Montgomery's life. Why does he live on an unknown Pacific island? W h o is his ugly assistant, with eyes that shine red in the dark? And why does he li.ivo a puma and other animals on board? When
the
captain
throws
Prendick
off the
ship
near
Montgomery's island, he meets Montgomery's master. Doctor Morcau, a famous scientist with dark secrets. And he meets others on the island too — strange animal-like people who live in fear o f Moreau, his laws and his House o f Pain. I lerbert George Wells was born near London in 1866. His father was a shopkeeper and a professional sportsman. But his sporting V
I ill' ended suddenly when he broke his leg. Soon his business 1,1 i let! too, and his family became very poor. At the age o f thirteen, yoiing Herbert had to get a job. I'or two years he was a shop assistant. He worked thirteen-hour days and slept with the other assistants in a room above the shop. I le was very unhappy. Finally he found a better job, as an assistant Icarher
near his mother's new home in Sussex. He was able to
•ilmly in the evenings. After excellent results in some science i'\.iininations, he won a free place at the famous Normal School 111 Sc icnce in London. At first he studied hard. He was taught by T. H. Huxley, an important biologist and a close friend o f Charles Darwin. Wells
never forgot Huxley's lessons, but he had few good memories
In llu- early 1800s, most people in Britain believed the story o f
o f his other teachers. He found laboratory work slow and
Adam and Eve.* They believed that God, the father o f the wodd,
boring, and he soon lost interest in his studies. He spent most
made Man in his own shape. People thought that the natiiral jj,.
of his time reading history and literature. He also started a student
vvorkl was kind and good.
magazine. He failed his fmal science examinations.
'
Hilt, in 1856, Charles Darwin changed everything. He wrote
While he worked as a school science teacher, he returned
lhal man is a relative o f the ape. As this idea was slowly accepted,
to his own studies. At the age of twenty-four he finally passed
people felt differently about the natural world. Nothing was
his university examinations in biology and became a university
pLimied. Nothing was for ever. We were no different from other
teacher. He also became a writer around this time. He wrote
.mimals in the past, but we changed. Perhaps, one day, we will
both serious pieces and funny short stories for newspapers and
I liange again. Will we get cleverer? Or will we change back to
magazines. His first book was for students o f biology. In 1893, he became very ill. He had to give up his j o b at the university. Luckily, he was starting to make enough money from his work as a writer.
I 111' animals that we were? These questions are at the heart o f The hhiiiil of Doctor Moreau. People's ideas about God changed too. Science could explain I he world without God. Religion seemed unnecessary. For some,
His first fiction book was The Time Machine (1895). It was an
il was bad, dangerous. White-haired old Doctor Moreau in Wells's
immediate success and other books soon followed: The Island of
slory is like God. But he is a bad God, an unkind God ... and his
Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The IL&r of the Worlds
work destroys him.
(1898). (These four books are all Penguin Readers.) Wells's work was a new form of literature, mixing adventure stories with more serious messages about the future of Man and Man's position in the world. By 1900, Wells was even more popular than Jules Verne, a writer of similar science fiction stories in French.
Wells was writing when Britain ruled large parts of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. There were already problems between the lli ilish and the local people. These problems grew more serious, anil Uritish rule ended in most places after the Second World War. Wells understood these problems very clearly. At first, the
But Wells wanted to be famous for more than adventure stories.
daI'k-skinned people on Moreau's island work for their Master
He wrote many works o f real-world fiction. These were very
and follow the Law. But, as in the real world ofWeUs's future, this
successful at the time but are not often read now. He also wrote
unnatural rule is soon thrown out.
serious books asking for a fairer Britain and better lives for the poor and for women. He was an internationally famous thinker, and his voice was often heard on the radio. In 1920 he met Lenin in Russia, and in 1934 he visited Roosevelt in the United States and Stalin in Russia.
Wells's strange story of Moreau's island is hard to forget. And lis main message is still important today. Science can make new lives and it can change lives. But we must not experiment with lilc just because we can. Without a strong reason for a scientific experiment, the results can be truly terrible.
In total he wrote more than 150 books, fifty of them works of fiction. He died in 1946.
Ail.im .md Eve: the first man and woman in the books o f the Christian, Jewish .111(1 Muslim religions
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