A strange manuscript found in a copper cylinder

Imagine you're sailing on a boat with friends and a big storm makes you lost. One guy washes up on a weird beach and finds a shiny copper tube with a story inside! The story is about a explorer named Adam who drifts to a secret hot jungle inside a giant volcano at the South Pole. There, people live all backwards: they love being poor and think dying is super cool, riding giant birds and eating magic fruit that makes them live forever but bored. Adam meets a nice girl and tries to escape the crazy place!

James De Mille's 1888 novel 'A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder' frames a thrilling tale of Victorian adventurers who discover a sealed copper cylinder washed ashore in the South Atlantic, containing a manuscript penned by shipwreck survivor Adam More. More recounts his harrowing drift southward after a nautical disaster, eventually entering a hidden volcanic crater in Antarctica's polar sea, revealing a lush, tropical paradise inhabited by two rival societies: the death-worshipping Kurgans, who venerate poverty, suicide, and ritualistic feasting as virtues, and the life-affirming Paradisians, who embody conventional morality but face subjugation. More integrates into Paradisian society, falls in love with the beautiful Althea, and navigates the bizarre customs of the Kurgans, including pterodactyl-riding warriors and a fruit granting unnatural longevity that curses its consumers with endless ennui. The narrative satirizes utopian ideals by inverting them into a dystopian mirror of Victorian materialism and utilitarianism, culminating in More's desperate escape attempt amid escalating tribal conflicts and supernatural horrors, blending lost-world adventure with philosophical critique.