Paradise Lost: The Story of a Group of Europeans who Tried to Find Utopia on a Remote Galápagos Island in the 1930s
- Danny Dutch
- 5 hours ago
- 20 min read
In 1929, long before the Galapagos Islands became synonymous with eco-tourism, conservation cruises, and Instagrammable marine iguanas, they were considered remote, harsh, and largely uninhabitable. That, of course, was precisely what attracted Friedrich Ritter.
Ritter was a Berlin physician with a sharp intellect, strong opinions, and a pronounced distaste for modern civilisation. A follower of Nietzsche, he believed that contemporary life, brimming with what he saw as weak comforts, industrial excess, and spiritual rot, was corroding the human soul. Like many European intellectuals of the period, Ritter had become disillusioned with the creeping urbanisation and political instability of post-World War I Germany. But unlike most, he decided to actually do something about it. Drastically.
Ritter was also in the midst of a complicated personal life. He had fallen for one of his patients, Dore Strauch, a schoolteacher with multiple sclerosis who shared his scepticism of modern values and his longing for something more elemental. Though Ritter was already married, he and Dore left everything behind, his practice, her teaching post, the trappings of city life, and set their sights on Floreana, an island that had once housed a short-lived penal colony and then returned to a state of wild, volcanic desolation.
They didn’t pick Floreana by accident. It had no permanent population, no infrastructure, and little in the way of fresh water. What it did have was isolation, and that’s what they craved.
Ritter took asceticism to almost theatrical levels. Concerned that dental emergencies could ruin their self-imposed exile, he had all of his teeth extracted before leaving Germany and replaced with a set of stainless-steel dentures. Dore, who could not afford to do the same, reportedly shared them. Whether or not they literally took turns with the same set of chompers remains debated, but it’s the kind of detail that became part of their oddball legend.
When they landed, the island greeted them with heat, sharp black rock, and little else. They set about carving out a life by hand, building a shelter from volcanic stone and driftwood they scavenged along the coast. They refused to bring luxuries with them—no furniture, no tinned food, no assistance from the mainland. Their diet was mostly vegetarian, supplemented by what they could grow, forage, or trade with occasional visitors.
This wasn’t just an escape—it was an experiment in survival, philosophy, and the belief that nature, however brutal, offered more truth than the world they’d left behind. Ritter saw their new life as a proving ground for both body and mind. Manual labour replaced medicine; a spartan lifestyle replaced convenience. For Dore, it was both a physical and emotional challenge. Living with multiple sclerosis in a place without medical aid was no small feat, and yet she adapted to the conditions with remarkable resilience.
In the beginning, they were utterly alone. No neighbours. No tourists. Just the hiss of lava fields cooling underfoot and the sound of waves crashing on blackened shores. Ritter and Strauch genuinely believed they had found their Eden, and for a time, it seemed like they had.
Their strange lifestyle and philosophical outlook—documented in letters home and passed along by curious sailors—would soon draw global attention. But for those early months, it was just the two of them, surviving on Nietzsche, vegetables, and volcanic grit.
The Adam and Eve of the Galapagos
Despite their yearning for isolation and self-sufficiency, Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch couldn’t keep the outside world at bay for long. What began as a deeply personal experiment in rugged simplicity quickly turned into an international curiosity.
Their own correspondence was partly to blame. Both Ritter and Dore had continued to write letters back to friends and family in Germany, partly out of habit, partly as a means of reflection. These were not your typical “wish you were here” postcards. Ritter’s letters in particular were philosophical, opinionated, and laced with his belief that he had found a purer, more honest way of living. Dore’s were more contemplative, offering glimpses of the physical hardships and emotional complexity of their strange new life together.
But these letters didn’t stay private for long. Some were published in German newspapers, reprinted in illustrated magazines, and even serialised by editors hungry for unusual human interest stories during a time when Europe was still reeling from postwar malaise and heading towards the Great Depression. In a world grappling with unemployment, political extremism, and a loss of faith in modernity, the story of a doctor and his lover choosing to live off the land on a deserted island captured something essential—a romantic, escapist ideal that appealed to a wide audience.
Passing ships began to stop by Floreana out of sheer curiosity. Some were American expeditions conducting scientific surveys in the Galapagos; others were journalists or amateur adventurers who had heard whispers of the German couple living in Eden. Word of mouth travelled faster than the supply boats. And the more visitors came, the more embellished the story became.
The press wasted no time mythologising them. Ritter and Strauch were dubbed the “Adam and Eve of the Galapagos” in headlines—an image that was equal parts romantic and exotic. Newspapers ran illustrations of them in pseudo-biblical poses, often under palm trees that didn’t actually grow on Floreana. The truth was rougher than the image: volcanic grit, parched soil, and an ever-present battle with nature. But the fantasy endured.
The public seemed to love the contradiction. Here was a modern doctor—highly educated and well-read—living like a caveman. Here was a woman with a disability, thriving in one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth. It was a story of love, survival, intellect, and the renunciation of comfort, all set in an island chain made famous by Darwin’s finches. For many readers, it was irresistible.
The letters also hinted at tensions: physical hardship, emotional strain, and the psychological toll of such radical living. But to the European public, those elements only added drama. Ritter and Strauch became unwilling celebrities of sorts, tropical intellectuals on a volcanic stage.
Of course, with notoriety came visitors, and with visitors came complications. The peace they had sought began to erode with every drop-in sailor, journalist, or would-be settler carrying a newspaper clipping and dreams of their own personal utopia.
What had started as an escape was becoming a spectacle. And Floreana, once the middle of nowhere, was now the centre of a story far bigger than the island itself.
New Neighbours: Enter the Wittmers
The growing attention around Ritter and Strauch’s island life soon inspired others to follow in their footsteps. Among them was Heinz Wittmer, a former World War I veteran and civil servant from Cologne. Like many Germans in the early 1930s, Wittmer was increasingly disillusioned by the instability at home. The Weimar Republic was faltering, unemployment was rampant, and the economy was lurching from one crisis to the next. He had worked in the office of Mayor Konrad Adenauer—who would later become post-war West Germany’s first Chancellor—but was now yearning for something more stable and self-directed, even if it meant braving the unknown.
Wittmer was also concerned about the health of his teenage son, Harry, who suffered from a chronic condition. The polluted air of industrialised Europe, coupled with the general hardship of the time, seemed ill-suited to a young boy already dealing with illness. Believing in the restorative power of nature, Heinz became captivated by the reports of Floreana and its supposed healing solitude.
In 1932, he made the bold decision to relocate his entire family—his new wife Margret, who was heavily pregnant at the time, and his son Harry—to this harsh and isolated island. Unlike Ritter and Strauch, who had philosophical and almost experimental motivations, the Wittmers were driven by more practical concerns: health, security, and self-reliance.
Once on Floreana, the Wittmers set to work building their own modest homestead, separate from the one Ritter and Strauch had constructed. They chose a plot some distance away—far enough to preserve privacy, close enough to remain in contact if needed. Their home was similarly improvised from the island’s resources: rough volcanic stone, wood salvaged from the shoreline, and whatever they could grow or trade. There was no real building material to speak of, and like the Ritters, they adapted through necessity, crafting a functional, if austere, living space.
While the two parties never became close friends, they shared an unspoken understanding of what it took to survive on Floreana. There was mutual respect, if not warmth. They occasionally helped one another—trading supplies, sharing news, or offering assistance in times of difficulty—but largely kept to their own routines and philosophies.
Then, in a remarkable testament to resilience, Margret gave birth on the island. Her son, Rolf, entered the world in primitive conditions without any medical support beyond what Heinz and she could manage. He is widely believed to be the first child ever born on Floreana, and his birth marked a turning point: the first real sign that perhaps a permanent community could grow in this seemingly inhospitable place.
The Wittmers didn’t set out to become part of a legend. But by merely staying—when so many others came and left—they carved a lasting place in the history of the Galapagos. In contrast to Ritter and Strauch’s philosophical experiment, the Wittmers’ story was more grounded: a family trying to build a new life, one day at a time, in a landscape that offered nothing for free.
And for a brief moment, it seemed like the island might be just big enough for the two households to coexist—each a separate vision of paradise, doing their best to ignore the other.
That equilibrium, however, would not last.
Then Came the Baroness
If life on Floreana had settled into a kind of rough but workable rhythm between the two German households, it was thrown spectacularly off course with the arrival of one of the island’s most infamous figures. In late 1932, an Austrian woman by the name of Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet landed ashore—flamboyant, confident, and accompanied by not one but two lovers. She immediately announced herself as “Baroness” Wagner-Bosquet, though no records exist to support the idea that she held any actual title or nobility. Most who met her concluded the aristocracy was entirely self-invented—but the title stuck, and so did the drama.
She was unlike anyone the other settlers had encountered. While Ritter and the Wittmers were grimly practical and ideologically austere, the Baroness was all theatrical flair and sweeping ambition. She brought along her two young German companions, Rudolf Lorenz and Robert Philippson, and introduced them as her “gentlemen protectors”. The three of them were a modern ménage-à-trois, and she made no effort to downplay the unconventional nature of their relationship.
Her vision for Floreana was not one of quietude or back-to-the-land idealism. Instead, she imagined herself at the centre of a tropical empire—an exclusive retreat for the international elite, complete with a luxury hotel called Hacienda Paradiso. The name alone suggests the scale of her delusion. There were no roads, no infrastructure, and barely enough water to sustain the few settlers already there. But the Baroness was undeterred. She claimed she had investors, plans, and even bookings, though no evidence of any of it ever materialised.
Her presence was impossible to ignore. She strutted often carrying a whip or a pistol on her hip, depending on her mood. Visitors reported seeing her greet ships while reclining in hammocks like some island monarch, posing dramatically for photographs, spinning tales of European intrigue, espionage, and adventure—most of which seemed invented or heavily embroidered. According to some accounts, she told people she had fought in revolutions, fled from assassins, and outwitted aristocrats across the continent.
Whether you believed her or not, she was captivating. Word spread quickly, and soon passing ships were making deliberate detours just to meet “The Baroness of the Galapagos”. Her cabin, which was little more than a wooden shack with a flag and a few lavish touches, became a curiosity stop for sailors, scientists, and tourists alike. She revelled in the attention and cultivated the myth around her, issuing self-aggrandising statements and even reportedly writing to Hollywood producers about a potential film based on her life.
But her antics and imperial attitude disrupted the fragile peace on Floreana. She intercepted the mail destined for the Ritters and Wittmers, hoarded supplies delivered by passing ships, and was rumoured to spread false stories about the other settlers to visitors. She allegedly made threats about taking over the island formally and claimed the Ecuadorian government had given her permission to develop the land as she saw fit—another dubious claim.
The settlers viewed her as a dangerous interloper. Friedrich Ritter, who had once considered himself the intellectual centre of the island experiment, was openly disdainful. The Wittmers, more reserved in their opinions, kept their distance but grew increasingly uneasy about her influence and growing stockpile of supplies. Even her lovers began to buckle under the strain of life in her shadow. Lorenz, in particular, became more withdrawn, reportedly suffering from anxiety and fear, often seeking refuge with the Wittmers when life with the Baroness and Philippson became unbearable.
In contrast to the self-imposed simplicity and hard-earned harmony of the other islanders, the Baroness had brought with her not only chaos but a performance—one that none of them had auditioned for, and one that, eventually, would spiral far beyond anyone’s control.
Tensions Rise and Loyalties Fray
Of the three members in the Baroness’s peculiar household, it was Rudolf Lorenz who seemed to unravel first. Initially presented as one of her devoted “protectors”, Lorenz was younger, more sensitive, and by most accounts, less suited to the harsh realities of island life than his rival, Robert Philippson. Though all three had arrived together in an apparent spirit of shared adventure, the dynamic within their triangle quickly soured.
The Baroness, ever theatrical, favoured Philippson—an ex-military man who was both more forceful and more physically imposing. As the months wore on, Lorenz found himself increasingly sidelined and humiliated, often subjected to verbal abuse and, according to various accounts, regular physical beatings from both the Baroness and Philippson. Life inside the so-called Hacienda Paradiso was no paradise for him.
Repeatedly, Lorenz fled to the Wittmers’ home—dirty, malnourished, and emotionally frayed. Margret Wittmer later described him as fragile and frightened, a man caught in something far more destructive than he could manage. She and her husband offered him temporary shelter, food, and compassion, and for a time, it seemed as if Lorenz might break free of the Baroness’s influence. But without fail, he always returned. Whether out of fear, misplaced loyalty, or the psychological hold the Baroness had over him, he couldn’t stay away for long. The island was small, but the emotional geography between these households was vast—and increasingly treacherous.
Meanwhile, the tensions between the settlers escalated beyond private discomfort. Mail, a rare and precious lifeline to the outside world, began to go missing or arrive opened. Accusations flew between the groups. Ritter suspected the Baroness of intercepting their letters and spreading slander to passing visitors. The Baroness, for her part, is said to have told newcomers that Ritter was a controlling tyrant and that the Wittmers were jealous, untrustworthy peasants. Petty grievances—over food, territory, or honour—took on outsized importance in the sweltering, enclosed atmosphere of island life.
Visitors to Floreana during this period frequently picked up on the island’s strange undercurrent. While the scenery was stunning and the wildlife extraordinary, the human inhabitants were noticeably on edge. Guests often reported a palpable sense of unease, an unspoken tension that hung in the air like the island’s volcanic dust. Some wrote about strange, contradictory stories from the settlers, each painting themselves as victim or hero. Others commented on the odd, almost performative quality of the Baroness’s court, with Lorenz trailing behind her like a scolded servant and Philippson standing watch like a bodyguard.
What had started as competing visions of paradise, a life of philosophical purity for Ritter and Strauch, and a fresh start in nature for the Wittmers, was now devolving into something darker. Allegiances shifted like sand. Resentments simmered. The jungle may have been outside their windows, but it was also creeping into their minds.
By early 1934, Floreana was less an idyll than a slow-boiling psychological experiment gone awry. Each settler was trapped not just by the island, but by their own choices—and by the other people they could no longer avoid.
Vanished Without a Trace
Then, on the morning of 27 March 1934, something happened that would forever change life on Floreana—and enter the realm of mystery.
According to the Wittmers’ later accounts, the Baroness Eloise Wagner de Bosquet and her favoured lover, Robert Philippson, suddenly announced they were leaving the island for good. They claimed to have secured passage aboard a private yacht bound for Tahiti. The Wittmers said the couple had appeared unexpectedly and in good spirits, explaining that they were finally abandoning their dreams of Hacienda Paradiso, and embarking on a new adventure across the Pacific. They reportedly asked the Wittmers to look after their home and possessions, and then, without fanfare, disappeared.
But there were immediate problems with the story.
First, no one else on the island—not Friedrich Ritter, not Dore Strauch, not even the occasional visiting sailors—had seen or heard any sign of a yacht. There was no smoke on the horizon, no approaching vessel, no sounds of anchor or activity at sea. The Galapagos Islands were, even by the 1930s, relatively isolated, and the arrival of any ship—particularly one large enough to sail to Tahiti—would have been noticed.
Secondly, all of the Baroness’s personal possessions were left behind. Her clothes, letters, books, and most tellingly, the pistol she frequently wore on her hip, remained untouched in the modest structure she called home. For a woman as theatrical and image-conscious as Eloise, leaving without these prized effects seemed wildly out of character. Her beloved whip and costumes, which she often used to greet passing ships and entertain visitors, were also still on the island. Nothing was packed. There was no trail, no farewell note, and no evidence that a voyage had been planned.
Most unsettling of all was the fact that she was never heard from again. Not in Tahiti. Not anywhere. No port recorded her arrival. No letters surfaced. No sightings were made. For someone who relished attention and went out of her way to court gossip, vanishing into silence was, to many, unthinkable.
Philippson, equally, disappeared without a trace. Unlike Lorenz, who left behind a pattern of behaviour marked by fear and retreat, Philippson had been a constant physical presence on the island—a man not given to sudden flights or whimsy. His disappearance alongside the Baroness only deepened the mystery.
Some believed the Wittmers’ story about the yacht was simply a cover. Dore Strauch, in particular, expressed deep suspicion. She noted that neither she nor Ritter had seen or heard a ship approach the island that day or in the days preceding it. She also questioned why, if the Baroness and Philippson had truly left voluntarily, they hadn’t taken anything with them, nor contacted anyone afterwards. To Dore, it felt less like a departure—and more like a vanishing.
Later, whispers would circulate that the Baroness and Philippson had been murdered, their bodies quietly buried or disposed of in the wilderness of Floreana. Some suspected Lorenz. Others believed the Wittmers knew more than they were saying. A few even speculated that Dore and Ritter themselves may have had a role to play. But the truth, if known by anyone, was never revealed.
To this day, not a single confirmed piece of evidence has emerged to explain what happened to the Baroness of Floreana and her partner. No bodies. No witnesses. No documents. Just silence, and a small island that refused to give up its secrets.
It was the beginning of the end for Floreana’s strange little utopian dream—and the start of one of the Galapagos Islands’ most enduring mysteries.
Flight and Death: The Fate of Lorenz
In the tense and uncertain weeks that followed the disappearance of the Baroness and Robert Philippson, Rudolf Lorenz became increasingly anxious—and visibly unwell. Already emotionally fragile from the years of psychological and physical abuse he had suffered under the Baroness’s rule, Lorenz now appeared thoroughly broken. Without her presence, he seemed unmoored. But if anyone expected him to feel relief at her absence, they were mistaken. Instead, Lorenz was wracked with nerves, terrified that suspicion might fall on him, and consumed by a desperate desire to get off Floreana.
He confided in the Wittmers, who once again offered him temporary refuge. According to Margret Wittmer’s later recollections, he was agitated, paranoid, and increasingly insistent that he had to leave the island as quickly as possible. Whether driven by guilt, fear of retribution, or simply a need to escape the psychological weight of what had occurred, Lorenz set about arranging his departure.
With no scheduled transport to or from the island, he hired a Norwegian fisherman named Nuggerud, who had been operating in the Galapagos for some time. Their plan was straightforward: Nuggerud would take Lorenz by small boat to San Cristobal Island, roughly 150 kilometres away, where Lorenz hoped to catch a ship back to the mainland of Ecuador. San Cristobal had a port and regular contact with the outside world. It was the last stepping stone between isolation and return.
The pair set off in the dry season, under a hot sun and a wide, empty sky. It was never quite clear whether they had supplies enough for the journey. Lorenz had left quickly, with minimal preparation, and the sea can turn hostile with little warning. After their departure, they were never seen again.
For weeks, nothing was heard. Their disappearance drew little immediate attention; travel by small boat in the Galapagos was inherently risky, and delays or detours were not unusual. But as time passed, concern mounted.
Then, months later, their fate was uncovered in the most haunting of ways.
On the arid, uninhabited shores of Marchena Island, nowhere near their intended route, two mummified bodies were discovered. The heat and dryness of the volcanic terrain had preserved them almost entirely. The corpses, recognisable by personal effects and position, were confirmed to be Lorenz and Nuggerud.
How they ended up on Marchena remains a mystery. The island lies well north of San Cristobal, and it would have taken a severe navigational error—or a series of catastrophes—to push them so far off course. Some theorised their small boat may have become disabled or caught in one of the Galapagos’ unpredictable currents, which can sweep even experienced seamen far from their path. Others suggested they ran out of water and drifted helplessly until they reached land, too weak to survive once they arrived.
No signs of struggle were found, no wreckage of their vessel, no messages scrawled in desperation. Just two bodies, frozen in time by the elements, on an island that had no reason to receive them.
Lorenz’s death only deepened the mystery of the Baroness’s disappearance. With him died any answers he might have held, answers about what really happened on 27 March, about the final days of the Baroness and Philippson, and about whether anyone else on Floreana might have been involved.
He had seemed so close to escape. But in the end, the islands claimed him too.
Poisoned or Just Poorly Cooked?
As if Floreana hadn’t witnessed enough strange disappearances and deaths, another came before the year was out, this time involving one of the island’s original settlers.
In November 1934, just eight months after the Baroness and Philippson had vanished without a trace, Dr Friedrich Ritter, the very man who had dreamed up a life of voluntary exile, strict vegetarianism, and stoic endurance, died in circumstances that left more questions than answers.
The cause, officially, was food poisoning. The story goes that a chicken had died under uncertain conditions—possibly from disease, heat, or poor storage. Despite Dore Strauch’s concerns, or so one version of the tale claims, Ritter insisted on eating it. For a man who had long championed a meat-free lifestyle and written extensively on the virtues of raw vegetables and physical discipline, the sudden craving for chicken seemed out of character. And yet, he was adamant.
Another account, though, claims it was Dore who prepared the chicken, perhaps to please him, or perhaps, as some have darkly speculated, with other motives. According to this telling, she did not boil it long enough, and the result was fatal. Dore maintained she ate the same meal and survived, though others later suggested she may have eaten only a small portion, or none at all.
What complicates the matter further is the account given by the Wittmers. They claimed that during his final hours, Ritter, in visible pain, accused Dore of poisoning him. Whether this was the fevered rambling of a dying man or a genuine final accusation is impossible to know. No autopsy was performed. No forensic investigation was undertaken. There was, of course, no doctor, Friedrich Ritter had been the only one.
Dore herself denied the charge for the rest of her life. She described his death as tragic but peaceful, and rejected any implication of wrongdoing. Not long after, she left Floreana for good, returning to Germany, where she lived in relative obscurity until her death in 2000. She later wrote a memoir, Satan Came to Eden, in which she detailed their life on the island and presented her version of events, both her devotion to Ritter and her lingering suspicions about what had really transpired during that fateful year.
But by then, the damage had been done. The fragile utopia that Ritter and Dore had set out to create was no more. The idealistic doctor had died a bizarre, meat-related death on an island he had chosen precisely to avoid such absurdities. The self-appointed Baroness had vanished without a trace. One lover was dead, mummified on a faraway island. The other had quietly slipped back to Europe.
Only the Wittmers remained.
What Really Happened on Floreana?
The mystery has never been conclusively solved. What we are left with are conflicting testimonies, fragments of letters, and a handful of recollections, some self-serving, some speculative, all coloured by isolation and suspicion.
Dore Strauch remained convinced that Rudolf Lorenz had killed the Baroness and Philippson, either in a fit of rage or desperation, and that the Wittmers, perhaps sympathising with Lorenz or simply eager to restore peace, had helped him cover it up. Others found this theory plausible, if unproven. Lorenz had been frightened, unstable, and pushed to his limits. It is not difficult to imagine him snapping under pressure.
But other voices have questioned Dore’s account. Some suspected she was projecting guilt or covering for her own complicity in a wider drama. After all, she had grown increasingly isolated from Ritter in their final months and had grown closer to the Wittmers. Her own role in island life had become more ambiguous, caught between loyalties, fears, and the haunting isolation that Floreana seemed to breed.
The Wittmers, for their part, never deviated from their account. According to them, the Baroness and Philippson simply left. They had boarded a yacht bound for Tahiti. No, they could not explain the lack of luggage. No, they had not seen the ship arrive. But they never admitted to knowing more, even when pressed. Margret Wittmer lived until the year 2000 and never changed her story—though in interviews later in life, she was known to drop hints that suggested she may have known more than she ever publicly admitted.
And then there are the stranger theories, the ones that flourish in the vacuum of truth. That the Baroness faked her death and escaped under a new name. That pirates murdered her and sank the vessel. That she and Philippson were killed by Ritter and Dore in some sort of last-ditch power struggle. Even wilder explanations involve sea monsters, aliens, and Bermuda Triangle-style disappearances.
As with all enduring mysteries, the lack of resolution only deepens the fascination.
Legacy of a Paradise Gone Wrong
In the end, it was the Wittmers who endured. They lived quietly, raised their children, and eventually opened a guesthouse on Floreana that still operates today—offering visitors rustic accommodation and perhaps a whispered tale or two, if they ask the right questions.
Dore lived out her days in Germany, far from the volcanic heat and salt-crusted rocks of the island where she had once imagined building a life beyond civilisation. But she never stopped believing that something dark had occurred back in 1934.
The Floreana affair remains one of the most bizarre and compelling chapters in the history of the Galapagos. What began as an eccentric experiment in solitude and self-reliance spiralled into a surreal psychological drama, complete with power struggles, competing ideologies, disappearances, deaths, and an absence of accountability that still puzzles historians and travellers alike.
Today, Floreana is quieter. The island receives tourists, scientists, and passing sailors, but its volcanic hills and dusty paths still carry the weight of old secrets. The cabins have decayed, the names have faded, and yet, the island seems to remember.
And who knows? If you visit Floreana, someone might just tell you what really happened.
But more likely, they’ll smile and say nothing at all.
Sources
Strauch, Dore. Satan Came to Eden. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936.
(Memoir by Dore Strauch detailing her experiences on Floreana and her version of events.)
Wittmer, Margret. Floreana: A Woman’s Pilgrimage to the Galapagos. New York: Macmillan, 1961.
(Autobiographical account from the only settler who remained, detailing life on the island.)
Goldfine, Dayna and Geller, Dan. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (Documentary). Zeitgeist Films, 2013.
(Feature-length documentary using archival footage, letters, and interviews with descendants.)
National Geographic Staff. “The Baroness, the Bohemians and a Bizarre Murder Mystery.” National Geographic, April 2014.
(Overview of the events on Floreana, including photographs and map references.)
Salvatore, Cesar. “Murder in Paradise: The Floreana Mystery.” Smithsonian Magazine, August 2014.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/murder-in-paradise-the-floreana-mystery-180952161/
(Historical synthesis and speculative analysis based on contemporary reports.)
Darwin Foundation Archives. “Early Settlers of Floreana Island: A Timeline.”
https://www.darwinfoundation.org/en/datazone
(Includes historical references to settlement, ecosystem changes, and demographics.)
Neill, Anna. Realism, Science and the Galapagos Islands: Nature and Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
(Contextual reference for the cultural mythology of the Galapagos as a literary and symbolic space.)
BBC Travel. “Galapagos’ Mysterious Disappearance: A Cold Case in Paradise.”
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210524-galapagos-mysterious-disappearance
(Travel and historical investigation with reference to archival records and family descendants.)
