Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne's masterpiece. Published in French as L'Île Mystérieuse in 1874, this novel is a sequel to Verne's earlier Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas. After hijacking a balloon from a Confederate camp, a band of five northern prisoners escape the American...