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. François 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.
| ISBN: | 9780819574695 |
| Publication date: | 19th July 2014 |
| Author: | Jules Verne |
| Illustrator: | Léon Benett |
| Publisher: | Wesleyan University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 308 pages |
| Series: | The Wesleyan Early Classics of Science Fiction Series |
| Genres: |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction |