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Sail to the exotic Galapagos Islands with Herman Melville, author of "Moby-Dick." Let History and Legend, Fiction and Fact, Myth and Mystery swirl around you as you enter "The Encantadas," a unique island world stretching along our planet's Equator. Discover teeming seabird rookeries, stark volcanic landscapes, and world famous giant tortoises . . . Meet buccaneers and explorers, colonists and castaways, whalers and naturalists . . . Explore these Enchanted Isles with one of America's greatest writers . . . Enrich your once-in-a-lifetime visit to . . . The Galapagos Islands. Travelers have been arriving in the Galapagos Islands since at least 1535. While naturalist Charles Darwin made these volcanic peaks famous, Spanish explorers, English buccaneers, American whalers, Ecuadorian colonists, and a United States President all put in appearances here over the centuries. Herman Melville was one such visitor. He first glimpsed the Galapagos Islands as a young seaman on the whaler "Acushnet" out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Years later, after the failure of his novel "Moby-Dick," he tried to regain his lost popularity with the reading public by writing a series ten of magazine sketches recalling the strange worlds he found in these Enchanted Isles. This current book was created for today's visitor-or armchair visitor. Bring it with you, or read it before you leave home. Enhance your enjoyment of the Galapagos Islands with these glimpses of its captivating natural and human history written over 150 years ago by that famous fellow traveler. Discover . . . - Herman Melville's ten sketches called "The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles." - Forty of Moses Michelsohn's striking b&w photographs (in color in the ebook) from the Galapagos islands: birds, iguanas, giant tortoises, sea lions, exotic plants, and volcanic landscapes. - Lynn Michelsohn's introduction to the work, and to each individual sketch. Enjoy your visit to the Galapagos Islands! About the Authors Herman Melville wrote in the genre that has been called "dark romanticism." "The Encantadas," like "Moby-Dick" (considered by many to be the best novel ever written) and his well respected novella "Billy Budd," draws on his shipboard experiences in the South Seas as a young man. Lynn Michelsohn has written such diverse books as "Roswell, Your Travel Guide to the UFO Capital of the World!" and "Gullah Ghosts, Stories and Folktales from the South Carolina Lowcountry." Her longstanding interests in both the Galapagos Islands and Herman Melville led to this work. Like Melville, biologist and wildlife photographer Moses Michelsohn found tortoises on the Galapagos Islands fascinating. Tree frogs in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and the southeastern United States remain his primary research interest, however.

Colorful illustrations and maps accompany stories of Great Britain and Ireland, covering topics from landscapes to literature and rock bands to the mystique of the royal family.

In Enchanted Islands, renowned art historian Mary D. Sheriff explores the legendary, fictional, and real islands that filled the French imagination during the ancien regime as they appeared in royal ballets and festivals, epic literature, paintings, engravings, book illustrations, and other objects. Some of the islands were mythical and found in the most popular literary texts of the day—islands featured prominently, for instance, in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso,Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, and Fénelon’s, Telemachus. Other islands—real ones, such as Tahiti and St. Domingue—the French learned about from the writings of travelers and colonists. All of them were imagined to be the home of enchantresses who used magic to conquer heroes by promising sensual and sexual pleasure. As Sheriff shows, the theme of the enchanted island was put to many uses. Kings deployed enchanted-island mythology to strengthen monarchical authority, as Louis XIV did in his famous Versailles festival Les Plaisirs de l’île enchantée. Writers such as Fénelon used it to tell morality tales that taught virtue, duty, and the need for male strength to triumph over female weakness and seduction. Yet at the same time, artists like Boucher painted enchanted islands to portray art’s purpose as the giving of pleasure. In all these ways and more, Sheriff demonstrates for the first time the centrality of enchanted islands to ancient regime culture in a book that will enchant all readers interested in the art, literature, and history of the time.

One of Melville's earliest writings, The Enchanted Islesis a hauntingly beautiful descriptive work inspired by a tour of the Galapagos Islands. Originally penned as a travelogue, Melville's writings form a series of evocative sketches of each of the Galapagos Islands. Recounting their myths and legends, he conjures up the spirit of each in astonishing detail. Read together, they create a timeless classic, perfectly capturing the islands' eternal charm and mystery.

A standalone hardcover edition of Herman Melville's novelette in ten sketches, "The Encantadas," with original illustrations by Eric Tonzola and a new introduction by Elizabeth Hennessy, author of On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden.

"Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic" by Thomas Wentworth Higginson is a collection of myths, legends, and folktales inspired by the islands of the Atlantic Ocean. Higginson, an American author, historian, and minister, compiled stories from various cultures and traditions surrounding islands such as Atlantis, the Azores, the Canaries, and others. The book delves into the rich tapestry of folklore and mythology associated with these islands, exploring themes of magic, adventure, heroism, and the supernatural. From tales of lost civilizations to encounters with mythical creatures, each story offers a glimpse into the imagination and cultural heritage of the people who inhabited or explored these islands throughout history.

Born to immigrant parents in Minnesota just before the turn of the century, Frances Frankowski grew up coveting the life of her best friend, Rosalie Mendel. And yet, decades later, when the women reconnect in San Francisco, their lives have diverged. Rosalie is a housewife and mother, while Frances works for the Office of Naval Intelligence and has just been given a top-secret assignment: marry handsome spy Ainslie Conway and move to the Galápagos Islands to investigate the Germans living there in the build-up to World War II. Amid active volcanoes, forbidding wildlife and flora, and unfriendly neighbors, Ainslie and Frances carve out a life for themselves. But the secrets they harbor—from their friends, from their enemies, and even from each other—may be their undoing.