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Yes, Mysterious Island was his sequel to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which is my favorite of his that I've read so far. I think In Search of the Castaways may have been a Disney movie inspired by his ideas that subsequently got turned into a book--I remember seeing that as a kid, but would need to look it up to remember the details. I also like his Journey to the Center of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon a lot. If you like his technological details, I think From the Earth to the Moon is one of his best--it anticipated the actual NASA moon mission very closely. He wrote many other lesser-known works I still want to read--about trips to the Arctic and the Amazon and stuff. Didn't notice he said "verdure" and "quadrupeds" all the time, but I'll keep an eye out for that :) BTW, since you like that aspect of Mysterious Island, did you ever read Robinson Crusoe or Swiss Family Robinson?--I like those for the same reason.

I don't think I liked his space works as much. I did really like Journey to the Center of the Earth - mostly I remember being fascinated by the decoding process, figuring out the runes.

Maybe the book I have isn't In Search of the Castaways...need to check. It's an older book, so I doubt it would have come after the movie. I actually haven't read it yet!

Looky what I found! I did read Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson. Liked Swiss Family Robinson better - I found Robinson Crusoe horribly self indulgent and irritating. But then I was pretty young when I read it and all the philosophical meandering annoyed me. I keep intending to read it again now that I'd understand it better. Ugh...I have far too many books to reread!

A pretty great example of Victorian realist art located here:

http://virtualart.admin.tomsk.ru/eakins/eakins10.jpg

Note the lacy (and what we think of as typically Victorian, which I suppose it was) dress hanging on the chair next to the model who is posing for the ship carver William Rush.

Note the model, of course.

Thomas Eakins, American, 1877.