The House Under The Sea Musaicum Adventure Classics

The House Under the Sea is an adventure tale set in the Pacific ocean and told by Jasper Begg, veteran sailor who has spent some fifteen years on the ocean. Jasper tells the story of the infamous Ken's Island, the most fearsome place he came across during his marine life. Excerpt: "He indicated the distant reef, which seemed, as I bear witness, ablaze with lights. And not only the reef, mark you, but the sea about it, a cable's length, it may be, to the north and the south, shone like a pool of fire, yellow and golden, and sometimes with a rare and beautiful green light when the darkness deepened. Such a spectacle I shall never see again if I sail a thousand ships! That luscious green of the rolling seas, the spindrift tossed in crystals of light, foam running on the rocks, but foam like the water of jewels, a dazzling radiance—aye, a very carpet of quivering gold. Of this had they made the northern channel. How it was done, what cleverness worked it, it needed greater brains than mine to say. I was for all the world like a man struck dumb with the beauty of something which pleases and awes him in the same breath. We were just a little frightened group that stared open-mouthed upon a seeming miracle. If we regarded the things we saw with a seaman's reverence, let no one make complaint of that. The spectacle was one to awe any man; nor might we forget that those who appeared to live below the sea lived there, as Ruth Bellenden had told us, because the island was a death-trap. We were in the trap and none to show us the road out."

The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean relates the adventures of three boys marooned on a South Pacific island. The story is told from the perspective of 15-year-old Ralph Rover, one of three boys shipwrecked on the coral reef of a large but uninhabited Polynesian island. Ralph and his two companions – 18-year-old Jack Martin and 13-year-old Peterkin Gay – are the sole survivors of the shipwreck. At first, boys have to manage how to feed themselves, what to drink, and how the resolve clothing and shelter, coping with having to rely on their own resources. As the boys adopt to the situation, they start dealing with new difficulties, such as conflicting with pirates, fighting with native Polynesians, and dealing with Christian missionaries and their conversion efforts.

"The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean" relates the adventures of three boys marooned on a South Pacific island. The story is told from the perspective of 15-year-old Ralph Rover, one of three boys shipwrecked on the coral reef of a large but uninhabited Polynesian island. Ralph and his two companions – 18-year-old Jack Martin and 13-year-old Peterkin Gay – are the sole survivors of the shipwreck. At first, boys have to manage how to feed themselves, what to drink, and how the resolve clothing and shelter, coping with having to rely on their own resources. As the boys adopt to the situation, they start dealing with new difficulties, such as conflicting with pirates, fighting with native Polynesians, and dealing with Christian missionaries and their conversion efforts. "The Gorilla Hunters: A Tale of the Wilds of Africa" is a sequel to The Coral Island set in "darkest Africa", and it follows the further adventures of Ralph Rover, Peterkin Gay and Jack Martin. After their adventures in the South Sea Islands, Jack, Ralph, and Peterkin go their separate ways. Six years later, Ralph, living on his father's inheritance on England's west coast and occupying himself as a naturalist, is visited by Peterkin, whose "weather-beaten though ruddy countenance" he does not recognise. Peterkin, who has stayed in touch with Jack, has hunted and killed every animal on Earth except for the gorilla and now comes to Ralph to entice him on a new adventure. After Peterkin writes him a letter, Jack joins the two, and they leave for Africa.

Geoffrey Fenton is a second-rate officer who embarks on the ship called Saracen. On the high seas, they have an encounter with a brig who claims to have sighted the mythical ghost ship of the Flying Dutchman, cursed ship that can never reach land, condemned to sail forever and ever, bringing bad luck to any ship that crosses its path. This information starts haunting the captain of the Saracen due to the contagious bad luck that this may entail and it turns out to be right when Fenton suffers an accident. He gets rescued by the ghostly crew of the Flying Dutchmen and the infamous Captain Vanderdecken. His only mission becomes to escape from the Death Ship.

The Gorilla Hunters: A Tale of the Wilds of Africa follows the adventure of three young men in "darkest Africa." Ralph Rover is living on his father's inheritance on England's west coast and occupying himself as a naturalist. He gets visited by his old friend Peterkin Gay, whose "weather-beaten though ruddy countenance" he does not recognize. Peterkin has hunted and killed every animal on Earth except for the gorilla and now comes to Ralph to entice him on a new adventure. The two are joined by the third friend, Jack Martin, and they leave for Africa.

The Iron Pirate is the tale of a great gas-driven iron-clad, which could outpace the navies of the world and terrorize the Atlantic Ocean. Constructed of a phosphor-bronze alloy with engines in the vessel that burn hydrogen, manufactured by passing steam through hot coal to produce a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, the nameless ship is captained by the infamous Captain Black and it brings horror to every ship and every sailor that comes in its path.

Martin Rattler grew up in a quiet village called Ashford where he lived with an aunt and he always dreamed of an adventure in a far away country. When he finished school, Martin boarded the ship Firefly where he became friends with Irish man Barney O'Flannagan. When pirates attacked their ship and it was wrecked, Martin and Barney were washed ashore on a Brazilian beach. Dealing with dense jungle, they had to made acquaintance with numerous jungle animals, birds, beasts and reptiles. They took a sail up the Amazon river, shooting alligators on its banks, spearing fish in its waters, and eventually being captured by wild tribes of Amazon forest. Upon escaping, Martin and Barney came across the diamond mines in Minas Gerais, and after doing some mining and gaining wealth, they decided it's time for them to return home. But, as always, things don't turn out as they plan.

The Pirate of Panama is a tale of the lost pirate treasure, and a group of San Francisco misfits and rascals who learn the secret, find the ship, and head off to an adventure. The chase takes them to Panama where they meet numerous perils in an attempt to get their hands on the buried gold.

In Paradise is one of the best-known novels by the German writer and translator Paul Heyse first published in 1875. Excerpt: "On slender pedestals stood a multitude of figures, most of them of half life-size, such as are used for the decoration of Catholic churches, chapels and cemeteries. Some of them were just begun, some were almost finished works; and in all could be clearly recognized the hands of the pupils who had their execution in charge--sometimes more and sometimes less skillfully imitating the little original models, barely six inches high, that stood on small shelves beside the copies. While the latter were neatly cut in sandstone or in the cheaper marbles--and a few in wood, decorated with all manner of painting and gilding--the little models were in plaster, and spotted and nicked by constant use. Yet these doll-like little madonnas, saints and apostles, and praying and playing angels in their heavy draperies, had a certain odd and now and then almost caricatured life-likeness--so great that not all of its charm was lost, even in the dry copies made by the assistants. They had something of the same element of humor that Ariosto gives to his personages--which by no means lose in life or force because their author has lost his own simple faith in them."