Le Phare Du Bout Du Monde

By too many people Jules Verne is considered only as a master of that form of

fiction which is based upon intelligent anticipation of the progress of

mechanical invention. As time goes on and one after another his forecasts in

this direction are justified by the event, it is likely that he will be

remembered as a prophet rather than as a romancer, which is his real claim to

distinction. For in imaginative fiction what is required of the writer is not

verity but verisimilitude, and the supreme merit of such books as "Twenty

Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "The Clipper of the Clouds" is not that

submarine and aircraft have now been proved to be possible but that they were

made to seem probable then. Above all things else Jules Verne was a master of

the art of writing the adventure story and his greatness is most apparent in

his simplest work.

In "The Lighthouse at the End of the World," Jules Verne is seen at his

simplest and best. No antecedent improbability here has to be made good. The

remoteness of the scene where the drama is laid supplies an element of dread

of which advantage is skillfully taken, and the shortness of the period over

which the story is extended adds excitement to the race against time which the

villains of the piece are compelled to make in their attempt to escape

justice. The rest is pure action, courage and resourcefulness pitted against

ferocity and power of numbers, with no merely invented complications to retard

the issue. As a simple adventure story "The Lighthouse at the End of the

World" must be declared a little masterpiece.