Jules Verne is one of the comfortably - known authors who ever lived . A book 300 movies , video display and manoeuvre have been found on his oeuvre and more are on their way . But although everyone knows Jules Verne much of what they know is wrong .
Illustration byGilles Roman
Movies , uncollectible translations and urban legends have organise most ideas people have about the generator . To take a piffling example , everyone knows about the famous balloon in Around the World in 80 Days . In fact , that balloon misstep has become pretty much a symbol not only for book but Jules Verne himself .
But there is no balloon in Around the World in 80 Days .
Here are a few more myths about the writer that you may not have realized were myth at all .
Verne was a writer of books primarily for children .
The idea that Jules Verne is a children ’s author is one determine pretty much to English - speaking body politic . Just about everywhere else in the earthly concern he is considered not only one of the 19th century ’s major authors , but one who is taken very gravely . A recent catalogue of books and papers about Verne and his study listed more than 4000 titles … and the telephone number is growing daily . Ironically , out of more than 60 books , Verne write only two specifically for children .
So how is Verne considered to be a author of account book worthy only for children in the US and on a equivalence with Dickens and Tolstoy everywhere else in the world ?
It ’s largely the defect of the rotten - hindquarters translations he get , which were filled with scientific mistakes and changes and omissions which conflicted with the political and religious views of Victorian England . For instance , the original transcriber of 20,000 Leagues deleted more than 20 % of the book , largely because he was a conservative British Protestant and Verne was a liberal French Catholic . This is in addition to literally one C of translation errors ( Verne ’s “ Badlands of Nebraska ” becoming the “ disagreeable territory of Nebraska ” ) and egregious mistakes in skill ( the interpreter provides a thrifty explanation of how the Nautilus floats because Fe is light than water ) . All of these mistake and errors were attribute to Verne , and because so much of the social and political message of his books was lopped out , they seemed like nothing more than trivial adventure stories to English - speak readers .
deplorably , once inept displacement like these devolve into the public domain and could be reproduced spare , they became the “ standard ” translations and can be still found in print today . ( On clue that you have the bad old transformation of 20 K in helping hand is to look for a chapter titled , ” From Latitude 47 ° 24′ to Longitude 17 ° 28′”—which describes something impossible . ) start in the sixties , as luck would have it , new , accurate , unabridged translation of Verne ’s most famous novel were being published . These have led to the current rebirth in pursuit in Verne in English - speaking country , where he is now take much more seriously than he once was .
Even though he wrote escapade story that take space everywhere on the planet , he was a stay - at - home author who never left his native France .
This is a “ fact ” about Verne you could find in any turn of reference Koran … and it ’s altogether untrue . Verne not only move extensively throughout Europe , Scandinavia , the British Isles and the Mediterranen , he have a yacht on which he much lived ( 20,000 Leagues was largely write aboard it ) . Verne once even traveled to the United States . He come over in that steam - hoodlum chef-d’oeuvre , the Great Eastern , and even establish a novel on the voyage . While here , Verne visited New York and Niagara Falls while he and his comrade roleplay out characters from James Fenimore Cooper novel .
One of Verne ’s yachts , the St. Michel III .
Verne copied many of his “ inventions ” from American dime novel .
This is probably the most pervasive lie ever spread about Verne and there are severalwebsitesthat are devoted to perpetuate the myth . The account is that a teenaged dime novel author named Luis Senerans send some of his work to Verne . Verne not only wrote back praise Senerans , he right away steal most of Senerans ’ mind .
The distressing fact is that it was entirely the other way around .
Aside from the job of there not being a fighting of grounds that any such correspondence ever survive or that Verne ever lay heart on any of Senarens ’ dime novels ( there is even serious dubiousness about Verne ’s ability to register English ) , the chronology of event work against the legend . Senarens was born in 1863 and did n’t issue his first Frank Reade novel until he was 19 . This was Frank Reade , Jr. , and His Steam Wonder , which was publish in 1882 in boy of New York — nearly twenty eld after Verne had issue his first novel . The Verne novel usually used as evidence of Verne ’s piracy is Robur the Conqueror , which star the giant flying machine , Albatross , a machine almost identical to the one Senarens ’ discover in his Queen Clipper of the Clouds . But Verne ’s novel was first serialized in 1886 while Senarens ’ was n’t release until 1893 . Worse news for the urban legend is the fact that Verne began oeuvre on Robur before Senarens was even have a bun in the oven !
If there was any plagiarization run on , even a abbreviated look at the Frank Reade stories show that it was in the other direction . And not only did Senaren ’s blatantly steal from Verne , his publishers even pirate the illustrations from Verne ’s novels for function in the Frank Reade stories !
Verne was mainly a skill fabrication author .
Not really . Of the 54 novels issue in his lifetime , scarce a 12 can be call “ science fiction”—and at that by from time to time making a stretchability . On the other hand , almost all of his Scripture were about one science in particular , the one he was most fascinated with his intact biography : geographics . All of his novel are about places and every one of his four dozen novels takes his readers to a unlike location on earth . This is the reason the series was called “ Extraordinary Voyages . ” So geographics - base were Verne ’s novels that I was once able to create an entireatlasof virtually 100 maps detailing all the journeys his characters undertook !
Verne ’s map of the voyage of the Nautilus .
Even when Verne was writing about giant submarines and spaceship , his end was really to take his readers to places he could n’t get them to without make up some exceptional machine . The Nautilus existed so he could describe to his lector the wonders being discovered by the new science of oceanography , the missile in From the Earth to the Moon allowed Verne to take his readers to the earth ’s satellite , and Journey to the Center of the Earth was all about Scandinavia , Iceland and geology . Of course , Verne was more than a tour scout : he was a master novelist , so his books are also replete with complex political issues , psychology and social satire , but we underwrite all of that in # 1 .
Verne invented the periscope and predicted atomic energy .
The sometime write up go that an discoverer accede a design for a hero sandwich periscope to the US Patent Office . “ Sorry , ” say the patent clerk , “ but we ca n’t go for this . Jules Verne described on the nose the same thing in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , so you have n’t do up with anything raw . ” It ’s a great storey , but , unfortunately , the Nautilus had to cruise the oceans periscopeless . Nowhere in the novel is anything resemble a periscope even advert .
The idea that Verne foreknow nuclear energy has the same seed as the idea that there is a balloon in Around the World in 80 mean solar day : the movies . Disney ’s 20,000 Leagues to be specific . While one hell of a movie , Nemo ’s account of the mysterious power that ran the Nautilus and the titanic explosion that wipe out Vulcania — followed by a towering mushroom swarm — firmly and permanently implanted in everyone ’s mind that Verne know all about nuclear energy . Unfortunately , not only did Verne write 20,000 Leagues thirty years before radioactivity was even unwrap , he described the Nautilus as being power by ceremonious battery .
He even note the brand name .
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