Sign-In
Cart
Master Antifer: A New Translation
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jan 30 2025
Pages: 358
Weight: 0.95
Height: 0.89 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
A mysterious inheritance. Clues scattered across the globe. And a cantankerous sailor whose greed will test every relationship he has.
Pierre Antifer, a proud and hot-tempered Breton sailor, receives startling news: Egyptian millionaire Kamylk Pasha has bequeathed him a fortune. But to claim it, Antifer must solve an elaborate puzzle-traveling to various locations worldwide to collect coordinates that will reveal where the treasure is buried.
What begins as promise of wealth becomes obsessive quest. From Tunisia to Egypt to Scotland to the South Pacific, Antifer chases clues while racing against rival treasure hunters equally desperate to claim the fortune. His greed strains relationships, corrupts his judgment, and transforms him into increasingly unpleasant companion to those who accompany him.
Jules Verne wrote Master Antifer in 1894 when he was sixty-six and struggling with health problems. The novel demonstrates his continuing professional competence-efficient plotting, geographical knowledge, ability to construct globe-spanning adventure around treasure-hunt framework.
Yet it reveals the creative decline marking his later years. The characterization is thin (Antifer defined almost entirely by greed and bad temper, making him difficult to sympathize with). The plotting is mechanical (predictable pattern of arriving at location, obtaining clue, moving to next destination). The exotic settings are rendered from secondhand sources rather than observation. The satire on greed remains disappointingly superficial-Verne shows how treasure-lust corrupts but doesn't examine it deeply.
The resolution provides the conventional twist ending treasure-hunt stories demand, though it feels more like trick played on readers than organic development of themes.
Contemporary critics recognized it as competent professional work but inferior to Verne's science fiction masterpieces and to better examples of the treasure-hunt genre. Modern readers will find basic entertainment value but thin characterization, mechanical plotting, and superficial satire.
From the author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea-late work showing professional skill without imaginative vision, competent adventure without genius.
Also from
Petault, David
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Paperback
Journey to the Center of the Earth: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
From the Earth to the the moon: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
In Search of the Castaways (The Children of Captain Grant): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Magellania (The Survivors of the "Jonathan"): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (In Search of Lost Time Vol. 2): A New Translation
Proust, Marcel
Paperback
A Country Doctor And Other Stories: In the Penal Colony, The Judgment: A New Translation
Kafka, Franz
Paperback
A Mexican Drama, The Blockade Runners, The Rebels Of The Bounty: A New Translation
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon ("La Jangada"): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
An Antarctic Mystery (Sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym): A New Translation
Verne, Jules
Paperback
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Michel Strogoff (From Moscow To Irkutsk): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Also in
Fiction Anthologies
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Robert M.
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Hardcover
James Weldon Johnson: Writings (Loa #145): The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man / Along This Way / Essays and Editorials / Selected Poems
Johnson, James Weldon
Hardcover
Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Shelley, Mary
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Stoker, Bram
Paperback
Sez I to Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank and Malachy McCourt
McCourt, Malachy
McCourt, Frank
Hardcover
Here in New England: Unforgettable Stories of People, Places, and Memories That Connect Us All.
Allen, Mel
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Paperback
Learn Russian with Beginner Stories: Interlinear Russian to English
Van Den End, Kees
Hyplern, Bermuda Word
Gettys, Serafima
Paperback
Obvious Adams -- The Story of a Successful Businessman: New Business Edition
Updegraff, Robert R.
Paperback
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings: Poems, Tales, Essays, and Reviews
Poe, Edgar Allan
Hardcover
Bookin' in the Big House: What I Learned Leading a Women's Prison Book Club
Devoto, Pat Cunningham
Paperback
Japanese Folktales for Language Learners: Bilingual Legends and Fables in Japanese and English (Free Online Audio Recording)
Sato, Anna
Sato, Eriko
Paperback
The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, volume 1
Pedraza, Pilar
Fager, Anders
Cubas, Cristina Fernández
Paperback
The Serpent Mound, Adams County, Ohio (Facsimile Reprint)
Randall, E. O.
Randall, Emilius Oviatt
Paperback