Science fiction · Horror
The Island of Doctor Moreau
A shipwrecked man reaches an island where a banished scientist is turning animals into something else.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
Rescued, then put ashore
Edward Prendick, a young Englishman with an interest in science, survives a shipwreck in the Pacific and is picked up by a schooner carrying a strange cargo of animals. Their keeper, Montgomery, a hard-drinking former medical student, takes Prendick ashore on a remote island where he lives with his employer, Dr Moreau. Prendick remembers the name: a London physiologist driven out of England years before by a scandal over his experiments. The island’s servants are odd; their faces and movements seem not quite right. And from Moreau’s enclosure, day and night, come screams. H. G. Wells, who had studied biology under T. H. Huxley, published it in 1896.
Why it works for learners
The novel is short and tightly told, with one narrator, one island and one terrible question. Prendick explains everything he sees and thinks, often in fear, so the narrative stays clear even at its most nightmarish. The vocabulary centers on animals, the body, the jungle and the sea, and on the law that Moreau’s creatures chant together. That chant, built from short, repeated sentences, sticks in the mind. Be aware that this is a disturbing book, with cruelty to animals and violence.
Which level to start at
B2 is the best level: the plot is simple, but the questions it raises about science, cruelty and what makes us human need room. B1 works if you want the story in clear form. At C1 and C2 you’ll feel the full chill of Wells’s restrained style.
Read next
- Frankenstein, the first great novel about a scientist and his creation
- The Time Machine, Wells on where humanity might be heading
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, another experiment on human nature