Introduction

"The Green Ray" is in Jules Verne's best manner: it contains some of the impossibilities raisonnets which are at once his distinguishing characteristic and the secret of his world wide popularity.

Content and Setting

Most of the marvels or impossibilities in "The Green Ray" are to be found in the picture there presented to us of Scottish names, manners and costumes. It will hardly be denied that such a Scotch family name as "Ursiclos," and such clans as the clan "McDouglas" and the clan "Melville," are sufficiently impossible; nor can it be counted as anything less than a marvel for a lowland gentleman's butler to wait at dinner and perform all his other duties clad in the "garb of old Gaul!"

Humor and Assumptions

But these and innumerable errors of the same kind are all due, apparently, to a fixed idea on the part of M. Verne that all Scotchmen are Highlanders.

Features and Illustrations

The story is a perfect setting for the admirable descriptions of Scotch scenery which are the best feature in the book. The illustrations, too, are unusually good, and, together with the beautiful type and delicately toned paper, greatly enhance the charms of the little volume.