The Kip brothers

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Front cover of the French original edition with an illustration by the draftsman George Roux
Illustration from the novel by the draftsman George Roux

The Kip Brothers is a novel by the French author Jules Verne . The novel was first published in 1902 by the Pierre-Jules Hetzel publishing house in two volumes under the French title Les Frères Kip . Volume I appeared on July 21, 1902 and Volume II on November 10, 1902. The first German-language edition appeared in 1903 under the title Die Gebrüder Kip . The English title of the novel is The Kip Brothers .

action

The quartermaster Flig Balt from Ireland and the British sailor Vin Mod are on board the ship “James Cook” from New Zealand . Together they devise a plan to take possession of the ship by force. Without scruples, Captain Harry Gibson is murdered and robbed while going ashore. The mutineers plan to flee to the islands of the South Seas . There are two witnesses to the crime. The two brothers Karl and Pieter Kip come from the Dutch town of Groningen . They were recorded as castaways of the sunken ship "Wilhelmina".

However, the two mutineers are captured and brought to justice. They plan to attach the captain's murder to the Kip brothers. You are successful with it and the Kip brothers seem lost. The two innocent brothers are sentenced to death by false statements. The sentence is then converted into life-long forced labor. The owner of the "James Cook", the shipowner Hawkins, but believes that the Kip brothers are innocent. Nat, the son of the dead Captain Gibson, initially believes that the brothers are guilty. Nat Gibson is an avid photographer. He and Hawkins were both there when the dead Captain Gibson's body was found. The body was then recovered and a wound examination was carried out. In order to preserve evidence, two detailed shots of the dead captain's body were made. The first shot is a bust and the second shot is a detailed view of the head. Only then were the dead man's eyes closed, which turns out to be decisive for the further course of the story.

At Hawkins' initiative, the photos of the dead captain are re-enlarged. Nat Gibson looks at these recordings with his father's portrait. He is so touched by the sight that he wants to kiss the picture. He becomes puzzled and looks at the picture with a magnifying glass that is otherwise used by photographers to retouch small errors on the photo plates. Through the magnification with the magnifying glass, he discovers that an image of the murderers Flig Balt and Vin Mod has been burned into the retina of the dead captain's eyes. This proves the innocence of the Kip brothers, who are acquitted.

filming

  • The novel was filmed in 1979 in the ČSSR under the title Bratři Kipové by the director Pavel Kraus . The actors were Rudolf Jelínek as Karel Kip, Otakar Brousek as Petr Kip, Jirí Adamíra as defense lawyer, Karel Urbánek as judge, Borivoj Navrátil as police inspector, Rudolf Hrušínský as shipowner Hawkins, Karel Houska as governor, Josef Vinklár as Balt and Jan Faltýnek.

literature

  • Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart and Munich 1992.
  • Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
  • Volker Dehs: Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005. ISBN 3-538-07208-6

Trivia

In the second episode of the first season of the TV series Fringe - Borderline cases of the FBI , a reference is made to the novel: In order to find the perpetrator, the image of the retina of a murder victim is transmitted on a screen.

Web links

Commons : The Brothers Kip  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Les Frères Kip  - Sources and full texts