Jules Verne

Dick Sand Jules Verne

Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (French: Un capitaine de quinze ans) is a Jules Verne novel published in 1878. It deals primarily with the issue of slavery, and the African slave trade by other Africans in particular. Dick Sand is a fifteen-year-old boy serving on the schooner "Pilgrim" as a sailor. The crew are whale hunters that voyage every year down to New Zealand. After an unsuccessful season of hunting, as they plan to return the wife of the owner of the hunting firm, Mrs Weldon, her five-year-old son Jack Weldon and her cousin, Bénédict, an entomologist ask for a return passage to San Francisco. Several days into the journey they save five shipwrecked passengers from another ship and a dog who was with them at the time (Tom, Actéon, Austin, Bat, Nan, Hercule and Dingo (the dog)). Towards the end of their passage, they notice a whale and the crew, hoping for some profit after a bad season, decide to hunt it.