A cautionary tale of the horrors that can ensue when man experiments with nature, from the father of science fiction, H. G. Wells.   A lonely island in the Pacific. The sinister scientist who rules it. And the strange beings who dwell there.... This is the scenario for H. G. Wells’s haunting classic, one of his most intriguing and visionary novels. Living in the late nineteenth century and facing the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution, Wells wrote this chilling masterpiece about the characteristics of beasts blurring as the animals turn into men. Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for his cruel vivisection experiments, finds a deserted island that gives him the freedom to continue torturous transplantations and create hideous creatures with manlike intelligence. But as the brutally enforced order on Moreau’s island dissolves, the true consequences of his experiments emerge, and his creations revert to beasts more shocking than nature could devise. A genius of his time, H. G. Wells foresaw the use of what he called the “atom bomb,” the practice of gene-splicing, and men landing on the moon. Now, when these have become part of everyday life, his dark fable serves as a compelling reminder of the horrors that reckless experiments with nature can produce.   With an Introduction by Nita A. Farahany and an Afterword by Dr. John L. Flynn “ The Island of Dr. Moreau takes us into an abyss of human nature. This book is a superb piece of storytelling.”—V. S. Pritchett Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) left school at thirteen to become a draper’s apprentice (a life he detested); he later won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, where he studied with the famous T. H. Huxley. He began to sell articles and short stories regularly in 1893. His immediately successful novel The Time Machine (1895) rescued him from poverty. His other “scientific romances”— The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), and The First Men in the Moon (1901)—made him the father of science fiction. Dr. Nita A. Farahany is a Professor of Law and Philosophy and the Director of the Science and Society Initiative at Duke University. In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is a widely published scholar on the ethical, legal, and social implications of the biosciences and emerging technologies, and a frequent commentator for national media and radio shows. Farahany is an elected member of the American Law Insitute, a Board member of the International Neuroethics Society, a coeditor and chief founder of the Journal of Law and the Biosciences , and recipient of the 2013 Paul M. Bator Award given annually to the outstanding legal academic under forty. She holds an AB (Genetics) from Dartmouth College, a JD, MA, and PhD (Philosophy) from Duke University, and an ALM (Biology) from Harvard University. Dr. John L. Flynn is a three-time Hugo-nominated author and longtime science fiction fan and critic who has written ten books, numerous short stories, articles, reviews, and a screenplay. A professor at Towson University in Towson, Maryland, he teaches both graduate and undergraduate writing courses, including a course on Writing Science Fiction. He holds two PhDs, in literature and psychology. Chapter 1 In The Dingey Of The "Lady Vain." I DO not propose to add anything to what has already been written concerning the loss of the "Lady Vain." As everyone knows, she collided with a derelict when ten days out from Callao. The longboat, with seven of the crew, was picked up eighteen days after by H. M. gunboat "Myrtle," and the story of their terrible privations has become quite as well known as the far more horrible "Medusa" case. But I have to add to the published story of the "Lady Vain" another, possibly as horrible and far stranger. It has hitherto been supposed that the four men who were in the dingey perished, but this is incorrect. I have the best of evidence for this assertion: I was one of the four men. But in the first place I must state that there never were four men in the dingey,--the number was three. Constans, who was "seen by the captain to jump into the gig," luckily for us and unluckily for himself did not reach us. He came down out of the tangle of ropes under the stays of the smashed bowsprit, some small rope caught his heel as he let go, and he hung for a moment head downward, and then fell and struck a block or spar floating in the water. We pulled towards him, but he never came up. Daily News, March 17, 1887. I say lucky for us he did not reach us, and I might almost say luckily for himself; for we had only a small breaker of water and some soddened ship's biscuits with us, so sudden had been the alarm, so unprepared the ship for any disaster. We thought the people on the launch would be better provisioned (though it seems they were not), and we tri