Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French author who helped pioneer the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1869–1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) and The Mysterious Island (1875). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the "Father of science fiction", along with H. G. Wells. Verne is the second most translated author of all time, only behind Agatha Christie, with 4223 translations, according to Index Translationum. Some of his works have been made into films.

The Mysterious Island is a sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though thematically it is vastly different from those books. The book tells the adventures of five Americans on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. The story begins in the American Civil War, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America. As famine and death ravage the city, five northern prisoners of war decide to escape by the unusual means of hijacking a balloon.

The Mysterious Island eBook uses the established Standard Works book reader already enjoyed by tens of thousands of users. It's also the same reader which powers our "U.S. Historical Documents" application which received a perfect 10/10 rating from AppCraver.com and was recently featured on the iTunes App Store.

The Standard Works book reader is simple to use, but also contains many advanced features not usually found in other eBook readers. Rather than continually flicking through little pages of text like some book readers, the Standard Works book reader displays an entire chapter or book at once for you convenience. The text can even automatically scroll for you in both portrait and landscape modes while reading. You can even highlight important words or phrases using the absolute best highlighting system available on the iPhone platform. Create notes for each paragraph which can be displayed inline and assign bookmarks to any paragraph in any book for future reference. And if that's not enough, quickly and easily find any text from any book with the fastest and most powerful search engine available on the iPhone.

The Standard Works book reader contains the following main features:
• Auto-scrolling (both variable-speed and tilt-based, portrait and landscape modes are supported)
• Adjustable fonts, size, colors, margins, spacing, and alignment (you can even adjust the font size by using a pinching gesture while reading!)
• Highlighting - 12 background colors, 12 foreground colors, bold, italic, and underline
• Night (low-light) mode - Black background with white text
• Application tips
• Bookmarks and even folders of bookmarks
• Last location in each book is remembered
• When re-launched, you're returned to the exact location you were last at while reading
• Search for words or phrases with INSTANT search results
• Powerful advanced search options
• Create notes for each paragraph which can be displayed inline
• Animated satin bookmark (similar to the one in the Classics application)
• Ability to choose the application's color theme

Be sure to check out our Bible and "U.S. Historical Documents" applications as well as more books from world renowned authors like:
• Charles Dickens
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Hans Christian Andersen
• Jack London
• Jane Austen
• Jules Verne
• H.G. Wells
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle