Robur the Conqueror

 Title of the work: Robur the conqueror

Original title: Robur-le-Conquérant

Narrative form: Novel

Author Name: Jules Verne

Publisher: R. B. A Coleccionadles S. A

Year of the edition: 2003

Genre: Fantasy

Year of reading: 2007

Additional Information:

-Make sure you have the version that has both parts, you save it if you have 18 chapters in total.

-You have to read Owners of the world, which would be the second part of this book.

-Fun fact: Shortly after this book there was a wave of similar 1896-1897 aircraft throughout the United States, and one of them even collided with a windmill in Aurora, Texas in 1897.

Summary of the work:

The novel refers to the advances in air navigation of the time by presenting an American engineer (Robur) who, before the members of the Weldon Institute in Philadelphia, a society that advocates the use of aerostats, defends the use of aerial aircraft "heavier than the air".

After being mocked out, he kidnaps the president, the company's secretary, and their servant, and puts them on the ship he has built, thus demonstrating to them the efficacy, safety, and power of his invention. The ship is called "Albatross", after the sea bird that is capable of flying for a long time and traveling enormous distances.

Described as a ship with numerous masts, a powerful internal machine (probably electric) turns the propellers that crown them: the author describes a kind of helicopter. To prevent it from turning on itself in flight, use is made of propellers that rotate in the opposite direction. The entire ship has been created based on paper pulp glued and pressed at high pressure: in this way, it is light and fireproof at the same time. The Albatross travels to numerous places, from Paris to the Poles, going around the world.

Later, the Albatross is seen inside a hurricane from which she cannot escape and it ends up on Equis Island to fix the damage. The truth is that Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans come up with the idea of ​​lighting dynamite so that it explodes at night while they escape with the servant to the island. They succeed, and the Albatross explodes at 3,000 meters.

Instead, at the Weldon Institute they are very concerned about the disappearance. They finally discover from a note dropped from the sky by Uncle Prudent that Robur the Conqueror has kidnapped them. After many investigations they get nothing. But on the most unexpected day, the president and secretary of the Weldon Institute show up.