The Begum's millions / Jules Verne -- Mr. Sharp makes his entrance -- Two friends -- A news item -- Divided in two -- The city of steel -- The Albrecht mine -- The central block -- The dragon's lair -- Absent without leave -- An article from Unsere Centurie, a German journal -- Dinner at Dr. Sarrasin's -- The council -- Letter from Marcel Bruckmann to Professor Schultze, Stahlstadt -- Preparing from combat -- The San Francisco stock exchange -- Two Frenchman against a city -- Explanations at gunpoint -- The kernel of the mystery -- A family affair
"When two European scientists unexpectedly inherit an Indian rajah's fortune, each builds an experimental city of his dreams in the wilds of the American Northwest. France-Ville is a harmonious urban community devoted to health and hygiene, the specialty of its French founder, Dr. Francois Sarrasin. Stahlstadt, or City of Steel, is a fortress-like factory town devoted to the manufacture of high-tech weapons of war. Its German creator, the fanatically pro-Aryan Herr Schultze, is Verne's first truly evil scientist. In his quest for world domination and racial supremacy, Schultze decides to showcase his deadly wares by destroying France-Ville and all its inhabitants
Both prescient and cautionary, The Begum's Millions is a masterpiece of scientific and political speculation and constitutes one of the earliest technological utopia/dystopias in Western literature. This Wesleyan edition features notes, appendices, and a critical introduction as well as all the illustrations from the original French edition."--BOOK JACKET.
