The Archipelago on Fire (The Archipelago on Fire #1)

The Archipelago on Fire (French: L’Archipel en feu, 1884) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne, taking place during the Greek War of Independence. ON the 18th of October, 1827, about five o’clock in the evening, a small Levantine vessel was heading close-hauled for Vitylo, in the Gulf of Koron, endeavouring to reach that port before nightfall. Vitylo, the ancient Oitylos of Homer, is situated in one of the three deep indentations which on the Ionian and Aegean coasts cut into the mulberry leaf to which southern Greece has been so aptly compared. This mulberry leaf is the Peloponnesus of the ancients, the Morea of the moderns. The first of its indentations on the west is the Gulf of Koron, between Messene and Maina; the second is the Gulf of Kolokythi, cutting back some distance into Laconia the severe the third is the Gulf of Nauplia, whose waters divide Laconia from Argolis.