After a shipwreck, the literary critic Humphrey Van-Weyden ends up on a ship with the dark name “The Ghost.” Its captain, Wolf Larsen, has a strong character, tremendous physical strength, and—by nature—a powerful intellect. Against the backdrop of dangerous sea adventures described with great skill and love, we see the contradictory figure of this cruel and cynical sailor—capable of easily killing a person, yet also a solitary philosopher, a fan of Tennyson and Shakespeare.