This fantastic tale was penned in 1897 by one of the classic authors of the adventure novel, Jules Verne. It was written as a response to Edgar Allen Poe's 1838 work 'The Narrative of Gordon Pym' and is set 11 years after the events in that story. The tale follows the narrator's journey from the Kerguelen Islands back to the USA after an expedition of private study into the wildlife of the islands. The journey, however, is fraught with mystery when they encounter a stray iceberg with a dead body on it. This is a great piece of fiction by a master of the genre; a must read for all fans of Verne's work. This classic novel is being republished with a specially commissioned introductory biography of the author to help the reader place the tale in context of his other works.