20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Being the True Account of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus

The Nautilus has taken three prisoners. One of them, Ned Land, a Canadian harpooner pulled from the ocean after the ship he was sailing was rammed and disabled by something beneath the surface, wants out from the first day and never stops counting. He counts days the way a man counts because counting is the only form of control available to him. He watches hatches. He maps the interior. He waits.

The second prisoner, Professor Aronnax, is a French naturalist who arrived planning to escape an...