A group of wealthy Victorian gentlemen, out sailing recreationally, find the eponymous strange manuscript and read it in instalments.
This is the narrative of one Adam More, cast ashore near the south Pole and chancing upon a strange subterranean world, where the inhabitants yearn for all we deem bad- death and privation being the greatest glories.
With human sacrifice and dinosaurs part of the tale (I wondered if the author of that kids book Dinotopia had been influenced by this?)...and love...it keeps you reading.
The gentlemen sailors interject every so often....theyre unable to decide if it's a true account or some kind of allegory... ( )

Published posthumously, and very possibly unfinished. Relatively pacey with moments of genuine suspense. Interesting intersections of scientific detail, particularly as regards linguistics. There is a satirical quality to De Mille's Kosekin civilisation, as explained by one off his narrators: even where a people's desires are entirely inverted, they remain tormented by desire itself. The plot's chief premise (what lurks at the south pole) was rapidly and entirely overtaken by advances in geographical knowledge, as the blank spaces in our maps were completed, but then the same could be said of most nineteenth century novels of this particular sub-genre, several of which enjoy greater reputations.

(A laughable review has been posted by a Canadian reader on this site, accusing the author, who died in 1880, of "dated racism", presumably for inventing two fictional tribal peoples who were less advanced than the average European. God save us. Canada too was once a fine country, not so long ago.) ( )

A seemingly usual tale of lost civilization and rescue the princess, avoid the dinosaurs type story, but those are mostly background details.
Its a look at a civilization which truly embraces the self-sacrifice teachings of many religious orders, which turns out to be pretty terrifying when you see it in practice. As this single concept can't sustain an entire book and things start to drag, a love triangle appears (not unlike the one in the 80's Flash Gordon movie, with Ming's daughter) which keeps it interesting until the finale.
A very odd thing about all this is the occasional interruption by those reading the found manuscript. These characters feel like they were written by P.G. Wodehouse and are completely at odds tonally with the rather dark story. They also analysis and criticize the texts language, geography and descriptions as if the author was a bit desperate to justify himself.
It started to lose me a few times but kept dragging me back in. ( )

A man lost at sea gets caught up in a mysterious Antarctic current and discovers a lost, isolated civilization. On the surface it appears remarkably friendly and welcoming, but soon he discovers its darker side. It is somewhat a Canadian analogue for Jules Verne and H.G. Wells as it posits quasi-scientific mysteries in a far corner of the Earth. Obvious parallels with H. Rider Haggard led to De Mille's being accused of following Haggard's model too closely. In fact, although this was published (posthumously and somewhat unfinished) after H. Rider Haggard's more famous and comparable works, it was written prior. The setting and monsters described here are more fantastical than in Haggard's more famous novels, the culture encountered even more unlikely. There's derring-do and haphazard accidental travels, odd tribal peoples and strange natural phenomena - and a sad degree of racism, portraying a civilized white man revolted by the primitive black man, and the peculiar suggestion that Semitic culture might lend itself to death-worship.

The most intriguing chapters were those belonging to the framing story, occasionally intruding to comment on the likelihood of this found manuscript's truth. They provide the author an opportunity to criticize his own work, examine different emphasis it might have entertained, and to suggest what its themes might be. I was pleased there is no consistent, clear line of argument among these debaters; they read very much like an actual group of people who each maintain and defend their own views of the matter without consensus. But it does leave an actual critic at sea (pun!) as to the author's real intentions. If it's an allegory, it would make Ayn Rand proud for its depiction of where extremist altruism will take you. If it's a satire, as Chapter 26 suggests, then it is nihilist and depressing. Its already weak scientific plausibility is only a ghost now. If it was intended as a harmless adventure, the dated racism introduces harm. Even speaking as a Canadian and finding this an interesting curiosity, I'm not sorry for its low profile. ( )

First part is very good as the hero gets swept away through an underground river. Only then he comes across the usual lost civilization and the boredom dial gets turned up to 11. ( )