As it happens, Kolderup's nephew, Godfrey, has a craze for traveling -- and he is also the most avid reader of castaway stories . . .

And as it further happens, the father of science fiction, Jules Verne, was an avid writer of castaway stories. While the greatest of them is The Mysterious Island, the most playful and diverting may be this light-hearted fantasy of staged shipwrecks, cold-hearted competition, and elaborate plans for ruin and revenge -- featuring dangerous, uncaged wild beasts. Originally published in 1882 as L'Ecole des Robinsons, the novel Godfrey Morgan will come as a delightful surprise to those only acquainted with Verne's imaginary journeys deep into the Earth, or into outer space.