Birkenhead Park - the real inspiration for the shape of Mysterious Island.

[John Lamb]

  Hello everyone,

as the forum has been very quiet lately. I thought I would post this attachment showing how Jules Verne's map of Mysterious Island is actually based on the shape of the Lower Lake in Birkenhead Park (the World's first public park, the model for Central Park New York and a proposed World Heritage Site). 

The Lake was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton in 1847 who subsequently went on to design the Crystal Palace in London. The lake and park have been a model of urban planning throughout the world...so this is no ordinary lake and Verne copied its unique convoluted design for the shape of his Mysterious Island.

You will see from the attachment that Birkenhead Park's Lower Lake and Verne's map of Mysterious Island map share the following unique properties.

1. Both have a Serpentine Peninsula in the south west 

2.  Both have a Road to the Far West  running to the south west with a sharp 'kink' in it.

3.  Both have a straight road to Port Balloon

4.  Both have a  grotto (Dakkar's Grotto on Verne's map, and a Roman boathouse grotto on the lake) on the north east shoreline.

5.  Both have a   promontory of Flotsam Point

6. Both have a South Mandible Cape and North Mandible Cape promontories in the north east.

7. Both have a Cape Claw in the south east

Birkenhead and its Lairds shipyard is of course mentioned in eight of Jules Verne's novels and so it should be no surprise that he also looks to Birkenhead for inspiration in other ways. 

Again it would be great if people could comment on whether they can see the resemblance. As I have always maintained, the mainly Birkenhead built Nautilus is inspired by the mainly Birkenhead built wooden warship CSS Alabama, The Mysterious Island is based on a peninsula (Wirral Peninsula and Birkenhead) and the shape of Mysterious Island is based on a lake...Birkenhead Park Lower Lake there is a commonality of clever decoy and genius here and once again I would hope that out of 175 members on this forum at least someone could see that commonality. 

The theories of Guermonprez, Faivre, Varrmond, Jan Mayen and Poirier as to the shape of Mysterious Island now have an intriguing addition.

I hope you enjoy reading the attachment. 

Best John Lamb