How is this book unique? Font adjustments and u0026 biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles by Herman Melville and "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles and " is a novella by American author Herman Melville. An anonymous narrator unites the ten disparate and "Sketches and ", each of which begin with a few lines of poetry, mostly taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. All of the stories are replete with symbolism reinforcing the cruelty of life on the Encantadas. and "Sketch First and " is a description of the islands; though they are the Enchanted Isles they are depicted as desolate and hellish. and "Sketch Second and " is a meditation on the narrator's encounter with ancient Galapagos tortoises, while and "Sketch Third and " concerns the narrator's trip up the enormous tower called the Rock Rodondo. and "Sketch Fourth and " details the narrator's musings from atop the tower, and his recollection of the islands' accidental discovery by Juan Fernandez. and "Sketch Fifth and " describes the USS Essex' encounter with a phantom British ship near the area during the War of 1812. Sketches Sixth through Ninth tell stories of individual islands. and "Sketch Sixth and " describes Barrington Isle, once home to a group of buccaneers. and "Sketch Seventh, Charles's Isle and the Dog-King and " is about Charles's Isle, formerly the site of a colony governed by a soldier who had taken the island as his payment for his role in the Peruvian War of Independence. He maintained order through his group of vicious attack dogs, but was eventually banished by the colonists who fell to even greater levels of lawlessness.