Follows the adventures of Corto Maltese who is picked up by a Russian pirate after being stranded at sea in the Pacific during World War I.

"In this final entry of Hugo Pratt's epic series, the master graphic novelist returns to the theme he first explored in the initial episode--the search for the lost continent of Mu, the mythical Atlantis. A premonition hovers over the entire dreamlike story, as if fate had decided in advance that this would be Corto Maltese's last adventure. The feeling is underscored by the return of most of the major characters seen throughout the long-running saga, like actors giving their final curtain call"--Amazon.com.

This book, the first of twelve volumes, launches the definitive English-language edition of Hugo Pratt's masterpiece, presented in the original oversized B&W format and with new translations made from Pratt's original Italian scripts... The adventures of this modern Ulysses are set during the first thirty years of the 20th Century in such exotic locales as Pratt's native Venice, the steppes of Manchuria, the Caribbean islands, the Danakil deserts, the Amazon forests, and the waves of the Pacific.

Exploring an overlooked era of Italian history roiled by domestic terrorism, political assassination, and student protests, this book shines a new light on what was a dark decade, but an unexpectedly prolific and innovative period among artists of comics intended for adults. Blurring the lines between high art and popular consumption, artists of the Italian comics scene went beyond passively documenting history and began actively shaping it through the creation of fictional worlds where history, cultural data, and pop-realism interacted freely.

"Visiting the writer Hermann Hesse while researching alchemists with his old friend Professor Steiner, Corto drinks from the 'source of the Alchemy Rose' and becomes immersed in a surreal and dreamlike adventure that involves Klingsor, the quest for the Holy Grail, Death, the Devil, and the Sandman, among others"--Provided by publisher.

In this final entry of Hugo Pratt's epic series, the master graphic novelist returns to the theme he first explored in the initial episode--the search for the lost continent of Mu, the mythical Atlantis. A premonition hovers over the entire dreamlike story, as if fate had decided in advance that this would be Corto Maltese's last adventure. The feeling is underscored by the return of most of the major characters seen throughout the long-running saga, like actors giving their final curtain call: Gold Mouth, Morgana, Tristan Bantam, Levi Colombia, Professor Steiner, "the Monk," Cain Groovesnore, Soledad, and (of course) Rasputin...each with their own reason to find the mythical realm. Thus, the circle closes. This EuroComics edition features new translations from Pratt's original Italian scripts by Dean Mullaney, the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning editor of the Library of American Comics, and Simone Castaldi, Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Hofstra, and the author of Drawn and Dangerous: Italian Comics of the 1970s and 1980s (University Press of Mississippi).

Set in the years 1921-22, the action leaps from Turkey, to Azerbaijan, and to the Caspian Sea, tracing the path of the legendary Silk Road, as Corto hunts for the fabled treasure of Alexander the Great.