The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Part 2: The Field of Ice

Description

The Field of Ice is the second part of one of Jules Verne’s best novels, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras. While the first part presents preparations for the expedition and takes the reader to the point when the entire trip is threatened with failure, the second one is about how Hatteras continues the journey, eventually reaching the Pole.

During the expedition, he and his men discover the remains of a previous expedition on an island where they decide to stay for the winter in shelters built from ice. When winter is over, Hatteras and his men build a boat from the wreck they found on the island. As they are approaching the pole, they discover an active volcano the crater of which is the pole itself. Hatteras jumps into the crater and disappears. The first version of the novel provided by Verne ends here, with the Captain perishing in the crater, but Verne’s editor urged the novelist to provide a second version for an ending. Verne did rewrite the end, allowing Hatteras to survive and to return to England. However, the experience of spending time inside the crater drives the captain mad and he spends the rest of his life in an asylum, unable or not wanting to speak, but taking long walks accompanied by his dog in the streets surrounding the mad house, always marching towards the north.

The novel has been translated to English multiple times by various translators, but most translations dating back to the 19th century were incomplete. The last and most complete version was provided by William Butcher and published in 2005.
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