Complete and unabridged, with 99 full-page plates by Winslow Homer, Thomas Luny and J. M. W. Turner. Five prisoners of the Confederacy escape Richmond by balloon in a storm and come down on an uncharted Pacific island with nothing but a dog, a watch and one grain of wheat. From that they build a colony, pottery and iron and a telegraph line, while something on the island keeps quietly intervening on their behalf. Verne meant it as the meeting point of two of his earlier books, and his publisher made him rewrite the ending twice. Its 118 original illustrations have been carefully restored and coloured for this edition.