Considered one of the fathers of science fiction, H.G.Wells (1866-1946) brought enormous inventiveness and an underlying social vision and moral concern to his strange tales and bizarre imaginings. A student of Darwinian biology, he formed his romantic conceptions of the scientific world at an early age. This novel, one of his first forays into the science fiction genre, concerns a mad surgeon-turned-vivisectionist who, in his laboratory on a remote island, performs ghoulish experiments in an attempt to transform animals into men, with monstrous results. It is one of Wells`s earliest and most sinister personifications of the scientific quest to control and manipulate the natural world, and, ultimately, human nature itself. First published in 1896, `The Island of Dr. Moreau` has intrigued and horrified readers for generations. It will gain legions of new fans in this inexpensive Dover edition.