Jules Verne was born in 1828 in France. His dream was to write a new kind of novel, which combined scientific fact with fiction. Verne eventually wrote 40 novels in his Voyages extraordinaires series. "What one man can imagine, another will someday be able to achieve." is a quote from an article in the Encyclopedia Britannica that sums up Verne so well. An Antarctic Mystery is also known also as The Sphinx of the Ice Fields. Its an 1897, two-volume novel and is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. The story follows the adventure of the narrator on his journey from the Kerguelen Islands onboard the Halbrane. The story begins as the narrator, a wealthy American who has been doing private studies of the wildlife on the Kerguelen Islands, is looking for a passage back to the United States. Captain Len Guy reluctantly agrees to have Jeorling as a passenger on his ship.