There are works in world literature that over the years do not lose either relevance or relevance. Among them can be called "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," and, of course, "Children of Captain Grant." This book was written by the famous French science fiction writer Jules Verne. This novel, which is part of the famous trilogy along with the story of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus submarine, as well as the Mysterious Island, has been a handbook for teenagers for more than a century and a half.
Despite the fact that Jules Verne is officially considered a science fiction, in the book “Children of Captain Grant,” which we will now try to summarize, there are no flights to the moon, no descent to the center of the earth, no warlike aliens from outer space. What is there? And there are noble sailors, sincere people, courageous women and generous men.
Of course, you can only feel the charm of the novel by reading it, since no retelling can replace personal impressions, but an account of the main direction of the book will give a general idea of it. So, let's begin…
Summary. "Children of Captain Grant" from the classic of French literature - Monsieur Jules Verne
At the end of July 1864, the owner of the Duncan yacht, Lord Glenarvan, and his young wife Helen prepare for their honeymoon. During testing the yacht’s driving performance, they catch a shark in the Irish Sea, inside which they find a bottle with a note. In those days, there were no mobile phones, satellite communications and the Internet, and a note sealed in a bottle was often the only chance of salvation for the unfortunate, shipwrecked away from civilized places. And there were plenty of such places on the globe.
After examining the contents of the bottle, Glenarvan saw that it contains three texts written in different languages and duplicating each other. The notes told that a certain captain Grant and his two sailors were waiting for help at 37 degrees south parallel.
Unfortunately, water penetrated inside the bottle and washed away part of the message, the one in which the longitude and name of the island were indicated.
It seemed that nothing could be done to help the unfortunate victims of the shipwreck, Glenarvan was directly told about this in the admiralty. But the Glenarvan spouses decide differently. Under the influence of tears, the children of Captain Grant, sixteen-year-old Mary and Robert, who are four years younger than their sister, they decide on their Duncan to circumnavigate the globe at the 37th parallel and find the unfortunate.
Naturally, they are not sent to the expedition in four. Major McNabbs willingly joins them, as well as the entire crew of the yacht, led by young captain John Mangles. At the very beginning of the journey, they gain another fellow traveler. Ironically, he turns out to be the famous geographer Jacques Paganel, who fell on Duncan due to his scattering, the fame of which goes hand in hand with his fame as a scientist. It was Paganel who, after studying the document, expressed confidence that, most likely, Captain Grant was in South America. And you need to look for him in Patagonia, the name of the territory that today belongs to Chile.
We will not retell in detail all the adventures in which the expedition members participated, since they can be recognized only by reading the novel itself, and not its summary. The children of Captain Grant, together with their friends, visited Patagonia, Australia, the island of Tristan da Cugna, and even New Zealand. But each expedition to these lands was fruitless. Sea water so cunningly damaged the document, fragments of words were so erratically washed away that with each new reading of it, the new version expressed by Paganel was absolutely indisputable. By the way, finding out the place of the shipwreck will be interesting for cryptogram lovers, since the process itself is a bit like solving the mysteries of dancing people. But, alas, in order to find out in what ways the geographer came to the conclusion that you need to look every time in a new place, you need to read the book itself, and its brief content.
The children of Captain Grant - Mary and Robert - proved that they deserve their father - a brave Scottish sailor.
After the expedition members circled almost the whole globe around 37 parallels, their hands began to drop, as the hope of saving the victims of the shipwreck almost disappeared. But the children did not want to accept the failure. They believed that their father was alive and waiting for help. Glenarvan promised them that another expedition would be organized a little later, and now they need to return. It remains only to do one, not very pleasant thing - to land the criminal Ayrton on the first
uninhabited island . Who is Ayrton and where did he come from? And this is written in a novel. You have not forgotten that you are not reading a book, but its very brief content.
Captain Grant's children suddenly hear a voice calling for help at night. It seems to them that this is the voice of their father. But where did he come from at sea? After all, the ship stands quite far from the unremarkable islet of Tabor, on which it was decided to land Ayrton. But you need to check, and Glenarvan sends a boat to the island.
There is no need to talk about the fact that Captain Grant was waiting for salvation on this island. Children finally find their father, and at the same time Destiny. Mary is engaged to the brave John Mangles. And Robert does not imagine his further existence without sea voyages. But Jules Verne does not seek to part with his heroes, and the reader will be able to meet familiar names in a book called "The Mysterious Island."