L’Île à hélice, between Utopia, Social Satire, and Political Philosophy

With L’Île à hélice (Propeller Island), published in 1895, Jules Verne imagines an artificial and mobile island that carries a futuristic city populated by billionaires. This novel presents a vast range of subjects, three aspects of which are discussed here: the utopian discourse which is the object of ironic comments from the narrator, the criticism of the power of money, and the description of the failure of a creation that goes against nature.