Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist and author. He wrote more than 230 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and nonfiction. He was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the Victorian golden age of the short story.

'Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea' is the tale of two enemies abandoned on a deserted island. Pierre Rochelle, a convict escaped from a French penal colony, has been living alone on a remote Pacific island for the past three years, with no means of escape. Then one day he finds a man asleep on the beach on the far side of the island. The new arrival has just been marooned by his mutineering shipmates.

Even as he still sleeps, Rochelle recognizes him as Gaston Charette - his own mortal enemy, the man whose false testimony had sent him, an innocent man, to the penal colony in the first place. But how will Rochelle welcome his new comrade? Will Rochelle avenge himself? Will Charette manage to gain the upper hand? Who will have control of the sole gun on the island? And what will happen if they ever are rescued?