Encyclopedia Nautica
4,0 stars
A classic adventure tale cataloging every fish, seaweed, and coral in the various oceans. Some of them are real.
As adventure tales go, particularly from this classic era, it's pretty good. I read it as a young teen and remember it fondly, although perhaps my fondness comes from the Classics Illustrated comic as much as from the actual text.
In honesty, it doesn't bear up as well as I'd hoped. Nemo's unexplored misandry against the M. Arronax's relentless intellectualism left me with too little satisfaction to give the story more than four stars.
Recommended, if only for the picture of what early science fiction looked like post-Frankenstein and pre-War of the Worlds.