It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea & The Mysterious Island

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea & The Mysterious Island

Two BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations

Summary

Jules Verne's two novels featuring Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island), condensed down to two thrilling hours.

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Marine scientist Professor Aronnax and his stowaway daughter Connie join whaler Ned Land aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to hunt an aggressive sea monster, believed to be a giant narwhale. When they engage the monster, they find to their astonish­ment it's an electrically-powered submarine, the Nautilus, techno­logically far superior to any vessel known. They are rescued by the ship's enigmatic captain, Nemo...

In The Mysterious Island, military engineer Cyrus Smith, his freed slave Neb, and reporter Grace Spilett - flee the besieged city of Richmond in a balloon. Their vessel is caught in a vast storm and blown thousands of miles until it crashes on a remote Pacific island. But they soon realise that they are not alone on the island...

Cast of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Captain Nemo - Sagar Arya
Professor Pierre Aronnax - Neil McCaul
Miss Connie Aronnax - Madeline Hatt
Ned Land - David Seddon
Captain Farragut - Philip Bretherton

Cast of The Mysterious Island
Cyrus Harding - Nathan Osgood
Grace Spilett - Kerry Gooderson
Neb - Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
Tom Ayrton - Rupert Holliday Evans
Captain Nemo - Sagar Arya

About the author

Jules Verne

Jules Verne was born in France in 1828 and died in 1905. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel was wildly successful, producing many brilliant novels in the burgeoning genre of science fiction: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Around the World in 80 Days, among others. Verne is the second most translated author in the world, after Agatha Christie and before Shakespeare.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more