A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

About this book

A manuscript inside a copper cylinder tells of a lost people living near the South Pole. Their civilisation has reversed familiar values: what its inhabitants prize most would horrify almost anyone from the outside world.

Published anonymously and attributed to James De Mille, the adventure alternates the found manuscript with the reactions of the people reading it. Gilbert Gaul illustrates the improbable setting, while the reversed values of its inhabitants supply the satire. Wealth, happiness and virtue begin to look oddly arbitrary when judged from this remote society's point of view.