Jules Verne

Introduction

When he was young, Jules Verne studied to be a lawyer, but he loved the theater and spent his time writing. When his family found out, they cut off his funding. For a time Verne even tried working as a stockbroker, but eventually he started to make a living at what he was born to do—creating genre-defining fiction. From 1863 until his death in 1905, he published more than a book a year. Many of them were adventure stories that incorporated his ideas of changing technology, such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1883). Although he had a limited reputation outside of France for many years due to poor translations, Verne is now considered one of the fathers of science fiction.

Essential Facts

1. In 1886, Verne’s 25-year-old nephew shot him in the leg, leaving Verne with a permanent limp.
2. The 1954 movie version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea won an Oscar for special effects, and the 1957 film of Around the World in Eighty Days won an Academy Award for best picture.
3. When he was a child, Verne ran away to go to sea—but he was caught and sent home.
4. Verne’s son Michel was a scandal to the family, so much so that he was sent to France’s Mettray Penal Colony. At the time, Mettray was considered an advanced, liberal reformatory, but the discipline and punishment were very harsh compared to today’s standards. Needless to say, Verne and his son never fully reconciled.
5. Verne’s novels were deeply researched, and he helped establish the reputation of the emerging genre of science fiction through his many scientific and technological predictions: he wrote about submarines, skyscrapers, and space travel before they existed.