On April 6, 1860, the brig Forward sailed from the port of Liverpool with eighteen crew members on board. But neither during the sailing, nor even for a long time after it, none of them knew the purpose of the voyage, or even the name of the captain. And only having gone deep into the Arctic water, the sailors learned that the expedition was led by the famous navigator John Hatteras, who had set himself the ambitious task of becoming the first person to reach the North Pole. Jules Verne began working on the novel in 1863, almost immediately after finishing the novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon.” In the work on the book, authentic documents from polar expeditions were used, and explorer John Franklin, whose expedition went missing, is sometimes called the prototype of Hatteras. In the process of work, the author constantly consulted about his individual episodes with the publisher Etzel; however, not all of Etzel’s advice was unquestioningly accepted by Verne - for example, he did not include the French in the Hatteras expedition. Jules Verne was completely immersed in writing the novel: “I, along with the characters, are at 80 degrees latitude at 40 degrees Celsius below zero - and I’m catching a cold just from writing about it!” The novel was completed in the spring of 1864. The author's preliminary plan for the ending of the novel is interesting. Jules Verne intended to end the novel with the death of the hero in a volcanic crater, and not to return him to England. However, during the work the plan was changed. At the time of writing the novel, it was not known for certain what was located at the North Pole - none of the expeditions had yet reached it. The first publication was in Etzel’s magazine “Magasin d’Education et de Recreation” (“Journal of Education and Entertainment”) from March 20, 1864 to December 5, 1865, under the title “The British at the North Pole. Ice desert." The first chapter of the novel began the publication of Etzel's magazine; the magazine subsequently published 30 novels by Jules Verne. The book was met with positive reviews from French and foreign critics. On May 4, 1866 (other sources call it June 2), the novel was published as a separate edition, in two volumes: the first was called “The British at the North Pole. The Travels of Captain Hatteras,” and the second is “The Icy Desert. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras. Publisher Etzel wrote a preface to the first volume. November 26, 1866 (sometimes there is an erroneous date - 1867) - the novel was published by Etzel in one volume, this was the first “double” volume of “Extraordinary Journeys”. The title of the novel is “The Travels and Adventures of Captain Hatteras. The British at the North Pole. Ice Desert”, illustrated with 259 drawings by artists Rio and de Monto. The novel was first published in Russian in 1866-67, translated by L. Shelgunova. In 1870 it was published in a translation by Marko Vovchka and then reprinted many times in the same translation.... Further
+“Around the World in Eighty Days” is a work by the French prose writer Jules Verne (French Jules Verne; 1828-1905).*** “Around the World in Eighty Days” is an adventure novel by Jules Verne about a trip around the world. The heroes of the novel Fogg and Passport go through many obstacles in order to return to England on time, circumnavigating the entire Earth in a circle. Ingenuity, scientific knowledge and their skillful application help the main characters win an incredible bet. Jules Verne is the author of science fiction and adventure novels “Around the Moon”, “Upside Down”, “The Lighthouse at the End of the World”, “The Green Ray”, “The Floating City”, “Two Years of Vacation”, “Michael Strogoff”, “Around” light in 80 days." The author based his intricate plots on scientific facts and theories known in his time. His works, in turn, captivated many scientists who realized some of Verne's fantasies. This is how technical inventions appeared, without which it is impossible to imagine modern life. The works of Jules Verne are popular in all countries; many of them have been adapted into feature and animated films. The writer’s books arouse interest in the scientific knowledge of the world and can serve as textbooks in geography, physics, biology, and botany. Jules Verne's novels are part of compulsory school...
Jules Verne- extremely popular French writer, founder of science fiction along with H.G. Wells. Verne's works, written for both teenagers and adults, captured the entrepreneurial spirit of the 19th century, its charm, scientific progress and inventions. His novels were mostly written in the form of travelogues, taking readers to the moon in From the Earth to the Moon or in a completely different direction in Journey to the Center of the Earth. Many of Verne's ideas turned out to be prophetic. Among his most famous books is the adventure novel Around the World in 80 Days (1873).
“Oh - what a journey - what a wonderful and unusual journey! We entered the Earth through one volcano and exited through another. And this other was more than twelve thousand leagues from Sneffels, from that dreary country of Iceland... We left the region of eternal snow and left behind the gray fog of the icy expanses to return to the azure sky of Sicily! (from Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864)
Jules Verne was born and raised in Nantes.
His father was a successful lawyer. To continue the family tradition, Verne moved to Paris, where he studied law. His uncle introduced him to literary circles, and he began publishing plays under the influence of writers such as Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (son), whom Verne knew personally. Despite the fact that Verne devoted most of his time to writing books, he received a lawyer's degree. During this time, Verne suffered from digestive problems that would plague him periodically throughout his life.
In 1854, Charles Baudelaire translated Poe's works into French. Verne became one of the most devoted admirers of the American writer and wrote his Voyage in a Balloon (1851) under the influence of Poe. Jules Verne would later write a sequel to Poe's unfinished novel, The Story of Gordon Pym, which he called The Sphinx of the Ice Plains (1897). As his career as a writer slowed, Verne turned again to brokerage, a business he had been involved in until the publication of Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863), which was included in the Extraordinary Voyages series. In 1862, Verne met Pierre Jules Hetzel, a publisher and children's writer who published Verne's Extraordinary Journeys. They collaborated until the end of Jules Verne's career. Etzel also worked with Balzac and Georges Sand. He carefully read Verne's manuscripts and did not hesitate to suggest corrections. Verne's early work, Twentieth-Century Paris, did not please the publisher, and it did not appear in print until 1997 in English.
Verne's novels soon gained incredible popularity around the world. Without training as a scientist or experience as a traveler, Verne spent most of his time researching for his works. Unlike fantasy literature such as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865), Verne tried to be realistic and stick to the facts in detail. When Wells invented “cavorite,” a substance that defies gravity, in “First Man on the Moon,” Verne was unhappy: “I sent my heroes to the moon with gunpowder, this could actually happen. Where will Mr. Wells find his Cavorite? Let him show it to me!” However, when the logic of the novel contradicted modern scientific knowledge, Verne did not stick to the facts. Around the World in 80 Days, a novel about the realistic and courageous journey of Phileas Fogg, is based on the real journey of the American George Francis Train (1829-1904). Journey to the Center of the Earth is vulnerable to criticism from a geological point of view. The story tells of an expedition that penetrates into the very heart of the Earth. In Hector Servadac (1877), Hector and his servant fly around the entire solar system on a comet.
In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Verne described one of the forefathers of modern superheroes, the misanthropic Captain Nemo and his amazing submarine, the Nautilus, named after Robert Fulton's steam submarine. “The Mysterious Island” is a novel about the exploits of people who find themselves on a desert island. In these works, which were made into films more than once, Verne combined science and invention with adventures looking back to the past. Some of his work became reality: his spaceship predated the invention of the real rocket a century later. The first electric submarine, built in 1886 by two Englishmen, was named Nautilus in honor of Vernon's ship. The first nuclear submarine, launched in 1955, was also named Nautilus.
Disney's 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (directed by Richard Fleischer) won an Oscar for its special effects, which included a mechanical giant squid controlled by Bob Mattly. The interiors of the Nautilus were recreated based on the book by Jules Verne. James Mason played Captain Nemo, and Kirk Douglas played Ned Land, a burly sailor. Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days (1957) won the Academy Award for Best Picture, but failed to win any awards for its 44 supporting roles. The film featured 8,552 animals, including Rocky Mountain sheep, bulls and donkeys. 4 ostriches also appeared on the screen.
During the first period of his career, Verne expressed optimism about the central role of Europe in the social and technological development of the world. When it came to inventions in the field of technology, Verne's imagination often contradicted the facts. In From the Earth to the Moon, a giant cannon shoots the protagonist into orbit. Any modern scientist would tell him now that the hero would have been killed by the initial acceleration. However, the idea of a space gun first appeared in print in the 18th century. And before that, Cyrano de Bergerac wrote “Travels to the Sun and Moon” (1655) and described a rocket for space travel in one of his stories.
“It is difficult to say whether Verne took the idea of that huge cannon seriously, because much of the story is written in rather humorous language... He may have believed that if such a cannon were built, it might be suitable for sending shells to the moon. But it is unlikely that he really thought that any of the passengers could survive after this" (Arthur Clarke, 1999).
The bulk of Verne's works were written by 1880. In Verne's later novels, pessimism about the future of human civilization is visible. In his story "The Eternal Adam", future discoveries of the 20th century were overthrown by geological cataclysms. In Robur the Conqueror (1886), Verne predicted the birth of a ship heavier than air, and in the novel's sequel, Master of the World (1904), the inventor Robur suffers from delusions of grandeur and plays cat and mouse with the authorities.
Verne's life after 1860 was uneventful and bourgeois. He traveled with his brother Paul to the USA in 1867, visiting Niagara Falls. During a ship trip around the Mediterranean, he was welcomed in Gibraltar, North Africa, and in Rome, Pope Leo XII blessed him and his books. In 1871 he settled in Amiens and was elected councilor in 1888. In 1886, an attempt was made on Verne's life. His paranoid nephew, Gaston, shot him in the leg, and the writer was immobilized for the rest of his life. Gaston never recovered from his illness.
At the age of 28, Verne married Honorine de Vian, a young widow with two children. He lived with his family in a large country house and sometimes sailed on a yacht. To the dismay of his family, he began to admire Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), who devoted himself to revolutionary activities, and whose personality may have influenced the noble anarchist in The Wreck of the Jonathan (1909). Verne's interest in socialist theories was already noticeable in Matthias Sandor (1885).
For over 40 years, Verne published at least one book a year. Despite the fact that Verne wrote about exotic places, he traveled relatively little - his only balloon flight lasted 24 minutes. In a letter to Etzel, he confesses: “I think I’m going crazy. I got lost among the incredible adventures of my heroes. I only regret one thing: I cannot accompany them pedibus cum jambis.” Verne's works include 65 novels, about 20 stories and essays, 30 plays, several geographical works, and opera librettos.
Verne died in Amiens on March 24, 1905. Verne's works inspired many directors: from Georges Meslier (From the Earth to the Moon, 1902) and Walt Disney (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954) to Henry Levine (Journey to the Center of the Earth ", 1959) and Irwin Allen ("Five Weeks in a Balloon", 1962). The Italian artist Giorgio de Ciroco was also interested in Verne’s works and wrote a study based on them “On Metaphysical Art”: “But who better than him could capture the metaphysical element of a city like London, with its buildings, streets, clubs, squares and open spaces; the haze of a Sunday afternoon in London, the melancholy of a man, a walking phantom, as Phileas Fogg appears to us in Around the World in 80 Days? Jules Verne's work is filled with these joyful and comforting moments; I still remember the description of the steamer leaving Liverpool in his novel The Floating Island.
On September 27, 2015, the first monument to the writer in Russia was unveiled on the Fedorovsky embankment in Nizhny Novgorod.
The future writer was born in 1828 on February 8 in Nantes. His father was a lawyer, and his mother, half-Scottish, received an excellent education and took care of the house. Jules was the first child, after him another boy and three girls were born in the family.
Study and writing debut
Jules Verne studied law in Paris, but at the same time was actively involved in writing. He wrote stories and librettos for Parisian theaters. Some of them were staged and even had success, but his real literary debut was the novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” which was written in 1864.
Family
The writer was married to Honorine de Vian, who by the time she met him was already a widow and had two children. They got married, and in 1861 they had a common son, Michel, a future cinematographer who filmed several of his father’s novels.
Popularity and travel
After his first novel was successful and favorably received by critics, the writer began to work hard and fruitfully (according to the recollections of his son Michel, Jules Verne spent most of his time at work: from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening).
It is interesting that since 1865, the cabin of the yacht “Saint-Michel” has become the writer’s study. This small ship was purchased by Jules Verne while working on the novel “The Children of Captain Grant.” Later, the yachts “San Michel II” and “San Michel III” were purchased, on which the writer sailed around the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. He visited the south and north of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway), and the north of the African continent (for example, Algeria). I dreamed of sailing to St. Petersburg. But this was prevented by a strong storm that broke out in the Baltic. He had to give up all travel in 1886 after being wounded in the leg.
Last years
The writer's latest novels differ from his first. They feel fear. The writer renounced the idea of the omnipotence of progress. He began to understand that many achievements of science and technology would be used for criminal purposes. It should be noted that the writer’s last novels were not popular.
The writer died in 1905 from diabetes. Until his death he continued to dictate books. Many of his novels, unpublished and unfinished during his lifetime, are published today.
Other biography options
- If you follow the brief biography of Jules Verne, it turns out that over the 78 years of his life he wrote about 150 works, including documentary and scientific works (only 66 novels, some of which are unfinished).
- The writer’s great-grandson, Jean Verne, a famous opera tenor, managed to find the novel “Paris of the 20th Century” (the novel was written in 1863 and published in 1994), which was considered a family legend and in the existence of which no one believed. It was in this novel that cars, the electric chair, and the fax were described.
- Jules Verne was a great soothsayer. He wrote in his novels about an airplane, a helicopter, video communications, television, about the Trans-Siberian Railway, about the Channel Tunnel, about space exploration (he almost exactly indicated the location of the cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral).
- The writer’s works have been filmed in different countries around the world, and the number of films based on his books has exceeded 200.
- The writer has never been to Russia, but in 9 of his novels the action takes place in the then Russian Empire.