The Lighthouse at the End of the World

Jules Verne’s adventure novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World (original French title: Le Phare du bout du monde) was first drafted in 1901. The edited version appeared after Verne’s death, in 1905, while the unaltered original manuscript was not published until 1999. The story is set in the mid-19th century and centers on piracy in the South Atlantic, with a strong survival theme in harsh conditions, all revolving around a remote lighthouse.

Verne drew inspiration from the real lighthouse on Isla de los Estados, Argentina, near Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn. The novel was adapted into the 1971 film The Light at the Edge of the World. It is inaugurated on December 9, 1859, to guide ships through the Le Maire Strait or south of the island. Three keepers—Vasquez, Moriz, and Felipe—are to staff it for three months until the Santa-Fé returns.

Unbeknownst to them, the island is home to a dozen marooned pirates who wait for ships to wreck. A new pirate band, led by Kongre, arrives and murders two of the keepers. Vasquez survives alone for months, living on the pirates’ hidden food stores in a cave. When the American ship Century from Mobile, Alabama, crashes after the pirates extinguish the lighthouse light, Vasquez teams up with the sole survivor, First Officer John Davis.

Together, they scavenge a cannon from the wreck and fire at the pirates’ ship, the Maule, as it prepares to leave the bay. The shell causes only minor damage, repaired in a few days. The night before the Maule attempts another escape, Vasquez swims to the ship and plants a bomb in the rudder, again causing minor damage fixed in a day. The next day, the pirates’ second-in-command, Carcante, spots the Santa-Fé on the horizon, but it will not arrive until nightfall and cannot enter the bay without the lighthouse light.

The pirates plan to slip out and sail around the island’s southern side, which they know well. Vasquez and Davis return to the lighthouse and relight it.