James de Mille

A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder ANNOTATED James de Mille

A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder was originally serialized in Harper's Weekly over nineteen installments, from 7 January 1888 (No. 1620) to 12 May 1888 (No. 1638). The story was quickly reprinted in a variety of editions, and in 1969 it was reprinted as a part of the popular New Canadian Library series from McClelland and Stewart. This case study draws on the 2011 edition published by Broadview Press and edited by Daniel Burgoyne. The satirical utopia depicted in the story upends generic conventions and tropes surrounding heroic explorers, genteel society, cultural encounters, and scientific inquiry. De Mille's narrative follows the adventure of Adam More as he encounters the Kosekin people living in a tropical Antarctica. The Kosekins revere death and seek poverty. More's adventure is, in turn, framed by the recovery of his story found in a copper cylinder by a group of upper-class British men, becalmed on the sea in their yacht.