Jules Verne

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Jules Verne ( Nantes , February 8 , 1828 – Ámiens, March 24 , 1905 ) was a French writer. He is classified among the 19th century writers and the best exponent of enthusiasm for the technological and industrial revolution of that century. He documented his fantastic adventures and predicted with astonishing accuracy many of the scientific achievements of the 20th century.

Biographical summary

Jules Verne was born in Nantes , France , on February 8 , 1828. He was the firstborn of Pierre Verne, a bourgeois lawyer and son of a judge. On the day of his baptism, his father showed him to the family and he decided that he would be a lawyer and take care of the family office after his death. From a very early age, his inclination to travel put him at odds with his father and he even tried to escape on a ship to India . When he was eleven years old, his father managed to stop him on the same ship and gave him a severe punishment: he was whipped and confined to bread and water. But what hurt him most was the promise that he was forced to make: he would never pretend to travel except with his imagination.

Written works

Signature of Jules Verne

Verne studied law in Paris . His beginnings as a writer were not very fortunate. He wrote some plays and comedies that he barely managed to publicize. In 1850 he wrote a light comedy, Las pajas rotas, which he managed to premiere in Paris with modest success. The following year he published two stories in the illustrated magazine El Museo de las Familias : Martín Paz (a fantasy inspired by the paintings of the Peruvian artist Ignacio Merino ) and Los primeros navíos mexicanos (a historical tale inspired by the Viaje al equinoxo americano , by the German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt ) and several short plays, librettos for popular operettas and short novels.

In 1857, betraying the cause of his misogynistic group of friends, The Eleven Without a Wife, he married Honorine de Viane, widow of Morel and mother of two daughters. In 1861 he managed to save enough money to travel to Norway and Iceland with his wife, but she could not travel because she was pregnant. On his return, she welcomed him with her newborn son Michel, the only child of the marriage. At the beginning of 1863, Five Weeks in a Balloon was published , with extraordinary success among the public. It is not a literary masterpiece, but its style is good and the general public easily understands it. In addition, it is the type of literature that was needed at the time, and people welcomed it with enthusiasm. For two days, during which he did not sleep, he visited fifteen publishers who rejected his work, but at last he went to see Jules Hetzel.

The eccentric editor believes in him and advises him to make some changes. They sign a twenty-year contract for three novels a year and Verne gives the collection a title that pays homage to Edgar Allan Poe ‘s Extraordinary Voyages . Passionate about travel and science, fundamental elements in his work, Verne keenly aroused interest in science and inventions in the 19th century.

Travels in his works

Cover of Hetzel’s French edition of The Adventures of Captain Hatteras .

He is classed among the writers of the 19th century and is the best exponent of the enthusiasm for the technological and industrial revolution of that century. He took advantage of the geographical knowledge of his travels in Europe , Africa and North America to give his adventures an almost fantastic, exotic style, but with a real-life verisimilitude. He documented his fantastic adventures and predicted with astonishing accuracy many of the scientific achievements of the 20th century . He spoke of space rockets, submarines, helicopters, air conditioning, guided missiles and moving images, long before these inventions appeared.

To better understand the scientific environment of the 19th century in which Verne lived, it is enough to mention that the novelist was a contemporary of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Karl Marx (1818-1883), Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), Robert Koch (1843-1910), Wilhelm Roentgen (1845-1923), Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857-1894) and Max Planck (1858-1949). In addition to his surprising scientific background, which never ceased to surprise his editor, Verne always sought advice from the best experts in the subjects he wrote about. In matters of style, he was always guided by his editor, in whom he had blind faith and whose suggestions he almost always accepted. His commercial vision was responsible for the inclusion, always anecdotal, of female characters that the misogynist Verne systematically forgot. Works such as Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) revealed his talent for mixing adventure with daring scientific foundations.

Shot in the foot

The year 1886 was a crucial one in Jules Verne’s life. On February 15th he decided to sell his yacht Saint Michael III. The yacht’s upkeep had become expensive and his son had fallen into debt. Jules sold it at half price to a certain Martial Noë. On March 9th 1886, returning from the Cercle de la Union at five o’clock, he found, after having opened its iron gate, his nephew Gaston Verne (son of his brother Paul Verne). The two had an excellent and close relationship and even shared a passion for literature and travel. Gaston entered his uncle’s office. A little later, the inhabitants of the house heard Gaston scream: “Die, you great wretch!” [1] He took out a revolver and fired two shots at Jules’ left leg: the first missed, and the second, Jules managed to deflect his leg and the bullet entered his left foot, without exiting. Gaston Verne was arrested. His father, Paul Verne, told the police that his son had shot Verne to get his attention so that he would help him get into the French Academy. However, Jules Verne told the police that the young man had come to ask him for money to travel to England. When the young man was flatly denied, he became enraged. Finally, the doctors declared that the young man was not responsible because he suffered from persecution mania. It is unknown why Gaston shot Verne. The secret could never be revealed because the incident was hidden by the press. [1] The bullet could not be removed because of diabetes, the wound took several months to heal. Thus, Jules Verne was forced to use a cane at the age of 58. [2]

Here I am condemned to a limp for which I will console myself by thinking of Mademoiselle de la Valliére, Talleyrand and Lord Byron .

Jules Verne, letter [2]

Gaston Verne remained in a mental asylum until his death on February 13, 1938. Robert Godefroy sent a telegram to the home of the publisher Louis-Jules Hetzel. But Hetzel was in the south, in Monaco , at the side of his father, who would die on March 17, 1886. Jules Verne’s leg wound left him with scars for the rest of his life. [2] After that attack, Verne was quick to burn all his correspondence with the young man. The reason remains a complete mystery. In one letter, Verne suggested that the reason was because he belonged to an exclusive secret Masonic lodge called The Society of the Fog” to which the writer Alexandre Dumas also belonged . [1]

On 15 February 1887, his mother Sophie Verne died in Nantes. However, Jules was unable to attend the funeral because he was unable to walk and his recovery was not progressing. He returned to Nantes one last time later that year to resolve the problems of succession and sell his parents’ country house on Rue des Réformes in the village of Chantenay.

Death

The pace of work that he maintained for so many years also caused Verne to suffer from gastric ailments and fainting spells, as well as facial paralysis and finally diabetes , which would end up killing him. This illness gradually took away his sight and later his hearing. Jules Verne died in Amiens on 24 March 1905. Until that date he had been working on a novel that he would call The Invasion of the Sea , in which the waters would invade Europe, destroying everything in their path. Another posthumous novel, The Eternal Adam , deals with a global cataclysm that floods the entire planet, causing the survivors to suffer a regressive period, returning to savagery.

Main recognized works

Novels ( Extraordinary Journeys )

Statue of Jules Verne in Vigo, Spain, made in 2005 by the sculptor José Molares for the centenary of his death.

  • 1863: Five weeks in a balloon (Cinq semaines en ballon)
  • 1864: Journey to the Center of the Earth (Voyage au centre de la Terre)
  • 1864: The Count of Chanteleine (Le Comte de Chanteleine), short story
  • 1865: From the Earth to the Moon (De la Terre à la Lune)
  • 1866: The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (Les Aventures du capitaine Hatteras)
  • 1868: Captain Grant’s Children (Les Enfants du capitaine Grant)
  • 1870: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers)
  • 1870: Around the Moon (Autour de la Lune)
  • 1871: A floating city (Une ville flottante)
  • 1871: The Blockade Runners: From Glasgow to Charleston (Les Forceurs de blocus)
  • 1872:  Ox (Une fantaisie du docteur Ox), story
  • 1872: Adventures of three Russians and three Englishmen in southern Africa (Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais dans l’Afrique australe)
  • 1873: Around the world in 80 days (Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours)
  • 1873: The country of furs (Le Pays des fourrures)
  • 1874-1875: The mysterious island (L’Île mystérieuse)
  • 1875: The Chancellor (Le Chancellor)
  • 1876: Michael Strogoff (Michel Strogoff)
  • 1877: Hector Servadac (Hector Servadac)
  • 1877: The Black Indian Women (Les Indes noires)
  • 1878: A fifteen-year-old captain (Un capitaine de quinze ans)
  • 1879: The five hundred millions of the Begum (Les Cinq Cents Millions de la Bégum)
  • 1879: The Tribulations of a Chinese in China (Les Tribulations d’un Chinois en Chine)
  • 1880: The steam house (La Maison à vapeur)
  • 1881: The raft (The raft)
  • 1882: Ten Hours of Hunting (Dix heures en chasse), short story
  • 1882: Robinsons School (L’École des Robinsons)
  • 1882: The Green Ray (Le Rayon vert)
  • 1883: Keraban the Stubborn (Kéraban-le-Têtu)
  • 1884: The Star of the South (L’Étoile du sud)
  • 1884: The Archipelago in Flames (L’Archipel en feu)
  • 1884: (Frritt-Flacc)
  • 1885: Matthias Sandorf (Mathias Sandorf)
  • 1885: The shipwrecked of the Cinthia [3](L’Épave du Cynthia)
  • 1886: Robur the Conqueror (Robur le Conquérant)
  • 1886: A lottery ticket (Un billet de loterie)
  • 1887: North against South (Nord against Sud)
  • 1887: The road to France (Le Chemin de France)
  • 1887: (story)(Gil Braltar)
  • 1888: Two Years’ Vacation (Deux ans de vacances)
  • 1889: Nameless Family (Famille-Sans-Nom)
  • 1889: The Secret of Maston (Sans dessus dessous)
  • 1890: Caesar Cascabel (Caesar Cascabel)
  • 1891: Mistress Branican
  • 1892: The Carpathian Castle (Le Château des Carpathes)
  • 1892: Claudius Bombarnac (Claudius Bombarnac)
  • 1893: Adventures of an Irish Boy (P’tit-Bonhomme)
  • 1894: Marvellous Adventures of Antifer (Mirifiques aventures de maître Antifer)
  • 1895: The Helix Island (L’île à helix)
  • 1896: Before the flag (Face au drapeau)
  • 1896: The Voyages of Clovis Dardentor (Clovis Dardentor)
  • 1897: The Sphinx of the Ice (Le Sphinx des glaces)
  • 1898: The superb Orinoco (Le superbe Orénoque)
  • 1899: The Golden Volcano (Le volcan d’or)
  • 1899: The testament of an eccentric (Le testament d’un excentrique)
  • 1900: Second homeland (Seconde patrie)
  • 1901: The Aerial Village (Le Village aérien)
  • 1901: The stories of Jean Marie Cabidoulin (Les Histoires de Jean-Marie Cabidoulin)
  • 1902: The Kip brothers (Les Frères Kip)
  • 1903: The Pirates of the Halifax (Travel Bags)(Bourses de voyage)
  • 1904: A drama in Livonia (A drame in Livonie)
  • 1904: Master of the World (Maître du monde)
  • 1905: The invasion of the sea (L’invasion de la mer)

Novels modified by Michel Verne

  • The lighthouse at the end of the world
  • The golden volcano
  • The Thompson and Co. agency .
  • The hunt for the meteor
  • The Danube Pilot
  • The castaways of the Jonathan
  • The secret of Wilhelm Storitz
  • Exciting adventures of the Barsac mission

Posthumously published novels

  • The Beautiful Yellow Danube
  • Cursed journey through England and Scotland
  • Uncle Robinson
  • A priest in 1839
  • Paris in the 20th century
  • The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz (original version).
  • The Lighthouse at the End of the World (original version).
  • The Golden Volcano (original version).

Stories

  • The Count of Chanteleine
  • Blockade runners : from Glasgow to Charleston
  • Doctor Ox
  • Master Zacharias
  • A winter among the ice
  • An ideal city
  • A drama in Mexico
  • Martin Paz
  • The mutineers of the Bounty
  • Ten hours of hunting
  • Fritt-Flacc
  • Gil Braltar
  • In the 29th century : the journey of an American journalist in 2889
  • The Mouse Family
  • D-sharp and Miss E-flat
  • The marriage of Mr. Anselmo de los Tilos
  • Edom
  • Siege of Rome
  • Saint Charles
  • Pierre Jean

Apocryphal works

  • A prodigious discovery:
    This work was published by Hetzel under the name of X. Nagrien in 1867. Until 1966 it was considered a work by Verne, but the researcher Simone Vierne determined that X. Nagrien was actually the pseudonym of the writer François-Armand Audoin, a writer who possibly does not exist.
  • The castaways of the Cinthia [3]

Anticipations

Although many consider Jules Verne to be the father of science fiction, Verne never really wanted to write about this genre. Rather, Verne was a writer of scientific literature, who wanted to bring newly discovered knowledge to young people. However, this knowledge led him to anticipate many of the inventions that would later astonish the world, including:

  • submarine ( 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea );
  • helicopter ( Robur theConqueror )
  • life during a space trip ( From the Earth to theMoon )
  • weapons of mass destruction ( Before the flag , The five hundred million of the Begún );
  • large ocean liners ( A floatingcity )
  • elevator ( The Mysterious Island ).

His vision in anticipating future discoveries and historical events is also recognized, such as:

  • The discovery of the sources of the Nile ( Five weeks in a balloon ).
  • The conquest of the poles ( The Adventures of Captain Hatteras , The Ice Sphinx ).
  • Totalitarian governments ( The five hundred million of the Begún ).
  • Journey to the Moon ( From the Earth to the Moon , Around the Moon ).

Film adaptations

Of Jules Verne’s novels, 33 have been adapted for the big screen, resulting in a total of 95 films, not counting television series. The work most often adapted is Michael Strogoff (16 times), followed by Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (9 times) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (6 times).

Top movies

  • “A Trip to the Moon” from 1902, directed by Georges Méliès.
  • “The Mysterious Island” from 1951, directed by Spencer Gordon Benet and starring Richard Crane.
  • “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” from 1954, directed by Richard Fleischer with Kirk Douglas in the role of Ned and James Mason as Captain Nemo.
  • “Michael Strogoff” from 1956, directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Curd Jurgens as Michael Strogoff.
  • “Around the World in 80 Days” from 1956, directed by Michael Anderson, with David Niven as Phileas Fogg and Cantinflas as Passepartout.
  • “From the Earth to the Moon” from 1958, directed by Byron Haskin with Joseph Cotten, Debra Paget and George Sanders.
  • “Journey to the Center of the Earth” from 1959, directed by Henry Levin and starring James Mason .
  • “Master of the World” from 1961, directed by William Witney and starring Vincent Price .
  • “The Mysterious Island” from 1961, directed by Cy Endfield with Michael Craig in the lead role.
  • “The Children of Captain Grant” from 1962, directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Maurice Chevalier , George Sanders and Hayley Mills.
  • “Five Weeks in a Balloon” from 1962, directed by Irwin Allen, with Red Buttons.
  • “Light at the End of the World” from 1971, directed by Kevin Billington and starring Kirk Douglas , Yul Brynner and Fernando Rey .
  • “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” from 1997, directed by Rod Hardy and starring Michael Caine , Bryan Brown, Patrick Dempsey and Mía Sara.
  • “Around the World in 80 Days” from 2004, directed by Frank Coraci, produced by Disney with Jackie Chan .
  • “The Mysterious Island” from 2005, directed by Russell Mulcahy and starring Kyle MacLachlan, Patrick Stewart and Gabrielle Anwar.
  • “Journey to the Center of the Earth” from 2008, directed by Eric Brevig and starring Brendan Fraser , Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem.