Hippolyte's Island

Norman P. Goldman is a retired Civil Law Notaire (Notary) who also
specializes in Montreal history and culture.

Barbara Hodgson’s third book is a fascinating tale of a
“screwball” traveler, Hippolyte Webb, who describes himself as “an
explorer by instinct and a self-taught historian by profession but by no
means by discipline.”

According to Hippolyte, somewhere in the South Atlantic—or, more
precisely, between the Falklands and South Georgia—there exist three
islands called the Auroras. Spanish navigators first reported these
islands in the 1700s and eventually, after they had been surveyed, they
were mentioned on various maps until they were officially removed from
Admiralty charts in 1853. However, they did find their way onto other
maps until the late 1890s. What happened after the 1890s when these
islands no longer appeared on any maps is a mystery. Our eccentric
traveler, Hippolyte, is determined to prove that these elusive islands
do, in fact, exist. Fortunately for our hero, an old child classmate,
Jeremy Gould, who is now a book publisher, agrees to publish an account
of Hippolyte’s journey into rediscovering these mysterious islands.
Armed with old maps and other sailing paraphernalia, he sets out from
the Falklands to find the Auroras.

After a fascinating voyage and a belief that he actually rediscovered
the Auroras, Hippolyte is thrown a “monkey wrench.” The editor
assigned to his book, Mary Simplon, does not believe his farfetched
story. Hippolyte and Simplon spend the balance of this charming novel
trying to prove the other wrong. Testifying to the author’s talents as
a photographer and designer are the clever insertion of graphics and the
collage of handwritten notes.