Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen

Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen
Author(s)	Jules Verne
Original title	Un capitaine de quinze ans
Translator	Ellen Elizabeth Frewer, anonymous
Illustrator	Henri Meyer
Country	France
Language	French
Series	The Extraordinary Voyages #17
Genre(s)	Adventure novel
Publisher	Pierre-Jules Hetzel
Publication date	15 December 1878
Published in English	1878
Media type	Print (Hardback)
ISBN	N/A
Preceded by	The Child of the Cavern
Followed by	The Begum's Fortune

Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (French: Un capitaine de quinze ans) is a Jules Verne novel published in 1878. It deals primarily with the issue of slavery, and the African slave trade by other Africans in particular.

Themes

Themes explored in the novel include:

• The painful learning of adult life - the hero, Dick Sand, must assume command of a ship after the disappearance of its captain.
• The discovery of entomology
• Condemnation of slavery
• Revenge

Plot

Dick Sand is a fifteen year old boy serving on the schooner "Pilgrim" as a sailor. The crew are whale hunters that voyage every year down to New Zealand. After an unsuccessful season of hunting, as they plan to return the wife of the owner of the hunting firm, Mrs Weldon, her five year old son Jack Weldon and her cousin, Bénédict, an entomologist ask for a return passege to San Francisco. Several days into the journey they save five shipwrecked passengers from another ship and a dog who was with them at the time (Tom, Actéon, Austin, Bat, Nan and Dingo (the dog)). Towards the end of their passage, they notice a whale and the crew, hoping for some profit after a bad season, decide to hunt it. Captain Hull reluctantly leaves Dick responsible for the ship. But the hunt goes awry and all the crew members are killed. Now Dick is left in charge of the ship with no experienced sailors to help him. He tries to teach the five survivors of the shipwreck and tries to reach the coast of South America, but Negoro, the ship's cook manages to trick them, breaking one of their compasses and their speed measuring device and eventually, after making sure the rest were lost, leads them to equatorial Africa.

List of characters

These names are as given in the original French version:

• Dick Sand
• Actéon
• Alvez
• Austin
• Bat
• Cousin Bénédict
• Coïmbra
• Dingo
• Halima
• Harris
• Hercule, a recurring Verne character, here given the pseudonym Mgannga
• Howik
• Captain Hull
• Ibn Hamis
• Moina
• Moini Loungga
• Munito
• Nan
• Negoro
• Tipo-Tipo
• Tom
• Samuel Vernon
• Jack Weldon
• James-W. Weldon
• Mrs. Weldon

Full text

• Dick Sands the Boy Captain at Project Gutenberg, English translation by Ellen E. Frewer published in 1879.
• Dick Sand; or, a Captain at Fifteen at Project Gutenberg, a different English translation published in 1878.

Sources

This article incorporates information from the revision as of September 27, 2007 of the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.