Chapter II: Preface: I. Shots Ashore and Shots at Sea!

II. FRITZ AND JACK PLAY SAVAGES

III. THE BRITISH CORVETTE "UNICORN"

IV. A RETROSPECT

V. THE STORY OF JENNY MONTROSE

VI. PLANNING AND WORKING

VII. THE START OF AN EXPEDITION

VIII. EXPLORERS OF UNKNOWN COASTS

IX. MONTROSE RIVER

X. THE DISTANT SMOKE!

XI. IN THE SEASON OF RAINS

XII. THE NEW VENTURE

XIII. THE MOUNTAIN RANGE

XIV. JEAN ZERMATT PEAK

XV. JACK AND THE ELEPHANTS

XVI. TROUBLE AHEAD

[The sequel to this story is "The Castaways of the _Flag_," which
is on sale at the same time and the same price.]

"THEIR ISLAND HOME"

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

It is a commonplace of criticism that sequels are unsatisfactory. For the most part they are, and the reason is fairly obvious. If the original story has been properly planned and written it should be a complete and completed thing with which the author has finished. If, yielding to public clamour for "more," he then professes to have regarded it merely as a "first part" of a larger thing and grafts something else on to it the probabilities are that his "second part" will prove to be but a mechanical invention mothered not by the necessity of inspiration but by some less noble emotion such as vanity or desire for further gain. Sir Walter Scott made no such blunder. He was not lured by the prodigious success of "Waverly" into putting forth any "farther adventures" of that somewhat precious young man but directed his creative powers upon a wholly new subject and while thereby satisfying the public desire for further romance set fresh laurels on his own brow and put more money in his purse.

Inspiration, in truth, is not to be captured. It comes from an outside source. And if sequels are to be written--and one must admit that sometimes they seem to be required--they should be written by another hand irresistibly compelled by the inspiration derived from the first originating genius. Robert Louis Stevenson could have written a better "second part" to "Robinson Crusoe" than was accomplished by Daniel Defoe and--to come to the particular--Jules Verne achieved a triumph when, his imagination fired by the one great work of Rudolph Wyss, he was impelled to carry it a further stage in "Their Island Home" and to its final stage in "The Castaways of the Flag."

Of the genius manifested by Rudolph Wyss, Jules Verne had much more than a double portion. An Island was ever his spiritual home and no one, not even Robert Louis Stevenson, was ever happier upon one. "Their Island Home" is a satisfactory sequel to "The Swiss Family Robinson" because it is essentially the spontaneous production of an original genius set in activity by something outside itself. Wherever "The Swiss Family Robinson" is read--and that is everywhere--"Their Island Home" and "The Castaways of the Flag" should be read. In French they are already established classics. I hope that in this English translation they will prove equally enduring.

CRANSTOUN METCALFE.

THEIR ISLAND HOME