The Wolf-Men

# Catalog Note: "The Wolf-Men" by Frank Powell

This 1906 Cassell and Company adventure novel follows an Arctic exploration expedition assembled by Professor James Mervyn. The expedition deploys a revolutionary 350-foot submarine designed by inventor Garth Hilton and engineer Tom Wilson, powered by Wilson's liquid-air engines capable of forty-five knots. Companions include Sir William Seymour (an experienced traveler) and millionaire American explorer Silas Haverly. The plot is immediately complicated when Haverly discovers a letter revealing conspirators' plans to steal the submarine. The narrative then traces the expedition's journey beneath Arctic ice barriers into an underworld of perpetual twilight. The explorers encounter various prehistoric creatures—elk, giant fish-lizards, a great saurian—and a civilization of "wolf-men." The thirty-five-chapter narrative includes encounters with indigenous peoples called Ayutis, a creature named Rahee, conspirators' agents, and catastrophic natural phenomena including cataracts, sinking pools, and fire gulfs. The expedition ultimately reaches the upper world and escapes a tidal wave.