Jules Verne 18 x 24 inches, Acrylic 2019
Jules Verne (1828 - 1905) was a renown French author who is best known in the English-speaking world as the originator of science fiction novel. Jules was born in the city of Nantes in western France on the Loire River, 30 miles from the Atlantic coast. His father was an attorney and his mother came from a family of shipowners and was partly of Scottish descent. Jules’ teacher at boarding school was the wife of a sea captain who had been lost at sea, but who, she believed, had been cast upon a desert island and would eventually return. Young Jules was intrigued by this story; he would never forget it and would use the theme of the castaway in many of his stories. He would be fascinated by the ships that plied the Loire and sailed out to sea. There is a story that he tried to run away from home to be a cabin boy on a ship bound for the Indies, but the tale is probably apocryphal.
When he finished his schooling, mostly in a religious seminary which he hated, Jules Verne was resolved to become an author, maybe another Victor Hugo, France’s greatest literary figure and the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. His father took a dim view of his ambitions and insisted that he, as the eldest son, follow in his footsteps as a man of law. In 1847 Jules was sent to Paris to study law and also to put some distance between Jules and his cousin Caroline, for whom he professed love. Caroline married an older man, while Jules, keeping his mind on his studies, passed his first-year exams. Back in Nantes his studies were interrupted when he fell in love again, this time with a young lady named Herminie. His love for her was intense, and she was the inspiration for the poetry he wrote at the time. His feelings may have been returned, but Herminie’s parents disapproved of Verne, a poor law student, and married their daughter off to an older, wealthy landowner. Young Verne was devastated by the turn of events and his disappointment in love haunted his future life and writings.
When he returned to Paris to complete his studies, the government was in turmoil and there were barricades in the streets. The Revolution of 1948 eventually resulted in the establishment of Second Republic and the presidency of Louis Napoleon (who would make himself Emperor in 1851). Verne, though, generally stayed out involvement in politics.
At this time he was plagued by medical concerns, stomach cramps and facial paralysis caused, we now suspect, from middle ear inflammation, perhaps Bell’s palsy. Verne, an ardent pacifist, was luckily spared being drafted into the armed force. The law student spent a lot of his time attending literary salons and writing plays, as well as doing research at the Bibliothèque national de France, the national library. He was able to meet the great writer Alexandre Dumas and became friends with his son Alexandre Dumas, fils, who had already written his famous novel La Dames aux Camélias (Camille). The two collaborated on a play that was produced in June 1850.
Verne received his law degree in January 1851, but was much more interesting in pursuing a literary career. Through the younger Dumas, Verne became secretary of the Théâtre Lyrique and helped write many of the operas that were performed there. He also found an outlet for his short stories. He was able to make the acquaintance of Pitre-Chevalier, a writer also from Nantes who was editor of Musée des families, a magazine devoted to popular science. In the summer of 1851 he published two of Verne’s stories, The First Ships of the Mexican Navy, written in the style of James Fenimore Cooper, whom he admired, and A Voyage in a Balloon, an adventure tale with science elements. This second story, which drew upon Verne’s knowledge of geography and history and love of detailed research, revealed his niche as a writer.
Verne’s father, who did not countenance Jules’ literary career, insisted that he come home and commence a career in law. In January 1852 he offered his son his own law practice, but Jules adamantly refused to accept it, telling his father that he knew his own mind and that his future lay in writing. During the early 1850s Verne continued to write plays, although most of them were never performed. He wrote stories and articles for Musée des families, but after a quarrel with Pitre-Chevalier he did not contribute to the magazine until after his death in 1863.
In May 1856 Jules Verne traveled to Amiens (75 miles north of Paris) to attend the wedding of an old friend from Nantes and ended up staying with the bride’s family. He was well received by them. The bride’s brother offered him a chance to go into business with a broker and work on the Paris Bourse, the stock exchange. He accepted readily, not only because it allowed him to make some real money, because it gave him an opportunity to be near his new beloved, the bride’s sister, Honorine de Viane Morel, a 26-year old widow with two children. A broker, Verne was now a respectable businessman with a regular income; even his father approved of his situation. And he was able to court Madame Morel, with the result that they were married in January 1857.
Verne left his position at the Théâtre Lyrique, but he continued to write and research — in his spare hours. For the first time he had the opportunity to travel outside of France. Aristide Hignard, a composer from Nante who had been his neighbor during his early years in Paris and with whom he had collaborated, took him along on two sea voyages paid for by his brother. Verne went to Liverpool and Scotland from Bordeaux in 1858 and traveled to Sweden and Norway in 1861. Verne, who always made the most of his experiences, was very impressed by what he saw and would draw upon it in writing his novels.
Jules’ long-held idea was to develop a new genre of fiction, the Roman de la Science, the science-fiction novel, with an emphasis on travel. He had finished one novel along this line, Voyage en Ballon, and was able to show it to a publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Hetzel, a cabinet minister during the Second Republic had published the greats, Balzac, Hugo, Zola, Presently he was putting together a magazine that would be called Le magasin d’éducation et de récréation, directed toward families and featuring stories that would foster scientific education. Verne was exactly the kind of writer he was looking for. With revisions suggested by Hetzel, Jules Verne’s first novel, Three Weeks in a Balloon, concerning three Englishmen who travel explore Africa in a hydrogen balloon, was published on January 31, 1863. The book was highly successful and made Verne’s fortune.
Verne and Hetzel had a good working relationship, at least at first, and were bound to each other with a long-time contract. Verne was obligated to submit three volumes each year, which Hetzel would purchase outright. They would be presented to the public in serial form, to be published in the biweekly Le magasin d’éducation et de récréation. After completion of the serial, the story would be published in book form, usually in three formats, an inexpensive volume without illustrations, a small volume with some illustrations, and a deluxe edition, large and with many illustrations. These would ideally come out at the end of the year so that they could be bought as Christmas presents.
Jules Verne saw his science fiction novels (and science fiction fantasies) as part of a series he called Voyages extraordinaires. (There would eventually be 54 of them!) He tackled the subject matter of the genre with a boundless ambition. Among his most famous novels are, in addition to the aforementioned Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) was Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), In Search of the Castaways (1867), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), The Mysterious Island (1875), Michael Strogoff (1876), and Robur the Conqueror (1886) and its sequel Master of the World (1904) There were many more, lesser known works; Verne’s output continued to his death in 1905. Only one early story, Paris in the Twentieth Century, was rejected by Hetzel who deemed it too pessimistic. It was eventually published in 1994 and revealed Verne’s prescience in seeing how future man would rely inordinately upon technology in his everyday life. In his published novels Jules Verne predicted inventions such as the submarine, air and even space travel.
Verne also adapted some of his stories to the stage. The play Around the World in Eighty Days was particularly successful and from it Verne earned more money than from his novels, despite their wide popularity.
Verne’s most famous character, save perhaps for Phileas Fogg, the hero of Around the World in Eighty Days, was Captain Nemo, who appeared in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. A scientific genius, Nemo constructs a submarine, the Nautilus, with which he sails the seas sinking ships to avenge slave-trading, militarism, and imperialism. An enigmatic Indian prince, Captain Nemo was first conceived by Verne as an anti-Russian Pole, but he reluctantly altered the character to appease his publisher Hetzel, whose interference, at this point, was not appreciated and often ignored.
Wealthy and famous, Jules Verne was able to satisfy his childhood ambition to take sea voyages. Beginning in 1867, he purchased a series of yachts (all called Saint-Michel). Although his permanent residence was Amiens, he spent a lot of time on his yachts and did much of his writing while at sea. He sailed up and down the Atlantic coasts of France and England and, in Saint-Michel III, a steam yacht with a crew of 10, he ventured into the Mediterranean and to Scotland.
Jules Verne was honored by being made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 1870 and in 1892 was promoted to Officier de la Légion d’honneur. However, it was a source of disappointment to him that he was never inducted into the Académie Française, as a writer of his stature would have expected. The snub was calculated. While he had his admirers, such as George Sand, many literary figures, Émile Zola for instance, dismissed Verne as merely a popular author. His novels were not “literature.” He wrote genre fiction and his popularity with the masses meant that his work could not possess any real merit.
As he grew older, Jules’ books became somewhat darker in tone. He had abandoned the Catholicism he grew up with; he remained a deist, but not a Christian. His relationship with his son was troubling. Michel was a disappointment: against his father’s wishes he married an actress, then had children by an underage mistress. (And naturally he was always in debt and wanting money). Later in life, Jules and Michel reconciled. Causing even more trouble for him was his mentally deranged nephew, Gaston, who, in 1886, confronted Verne with a pistol and shot him in the left leg, causing him to limp for the rest of his life.
Jules Verne, in addition to the limp, suffered from various health problems that were not effectively addressed or treated. He had chronic digestive problems, high-blood pressure, and Type 2 diabetes. He succumbed to these ailments and died on March 24, 1905. He was 77.
When he finished his schooling, mostly in a religious seminary which he hated, Jules Verne was resolved to become an author, maybe another Victor Hugo, France’s greatest literary figure and the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. His father took a dim view of his ambitions and insisted that he, as the eldest son, follow in his footsteps as a man of law. In 1847 Jules was sent to Paris to study law and also to put some distance between Jules and his cousin Caroline, for whom he professed love. Caroline married an older man, while Jules, keeping his mind on his studies, passed his first-year exams. Back in Nantes his studies were interrupted when he fell in love again, this time with a young lady named Herminie. His love for her was intense, and she was the inspiration for the poetry he wrote at the time. His feelings may have been returned, but Herminie’s parents disapproved of Verne, a poor law student, and married their daughter off to an older, wealthy landowner. Young Verne was devastated by the turn of events and his disappointment in love haunted his future life and writings.
When he returned to Paris to complete his studies, the government was in turmoil and there were barricades in the streets. The Revolution of 1948 eventually resulted in the establishment of Second Republic and the presidency of Louis Napoleon (who would make himself Emperor in 1851). Verne, though, generally stayed out involvement in politics.
At this time he was plagued by medical concerns, stomach cramps and facial paralysis caused, we now suspect, from middle ear inflammation, perhaps Bell’s palsy. Verne, an ardent pacifist, was luckily spared being drafted into the armed force. The law student spent a lot of his time attending literary salons and writing plays, as well as doing research at the Bibliothèque national de France, the national library. He was able to meet the great writer Alexandre Dumas and became friends with his son Alexandre Dumas, fils, who had already written his famous novel La Dames aux Camélias (Camille). The two collaborated on a play that was produced in June 1850.
Verne received his law degree in January 1851, but was much more interesting in pursuing a literary career. Through the younger Dumas, Verne became secretary of the Théâtre Lyrique and helped write many of the operas that were performed there. He also found an outlet for his short stories. He was able to make the acquaintance of Pitre-Chevalier, a writer also from Nantes who was editor of Musée des families, a magazine devoted to popular science. In the summer of 1851 he published two of Verne’s stories, The First Ships of the Mexican Navy, written in the style of James Fenimore Cooper, whom he admired, and A Voyage in a Balloon, an adventure tale with science elements. This second story, which drew upon Verne’s knowledge of geography and history and love of detailed research, revealed his niche as a writer.
Verne’s father, who did not countenance Jules’ literary career, insisted that he come home and commence a career in law. In January 1852 he offered his son his own law practice, but Jules adamantly refused to accept it, telling his father that he knew his own mind and that his future lay in writing. During the early 1850s Verne continued to write plays, although most of them were never performed. He wrote stories and articles for Musée des families, but after a quarrel with Pitre-Chevalier he did not contribute to the magazine until after his death in 1863.
In May 1856 Jules Verne traveled to Amiens (75 miles north of Paris) to attend the wedding of an old friend from Nantes and ended up staying with the bride’s family. He was well received by them. The bride’s brother offered him a chance to go into business with a broker and work on the Paris Bourse, the stock exchange. He accepted readily, not only because it allowed him to make some real money, because it gave him an opportunity to be near his new beloved, the bride’s sister, Honorine de Viane Morel, a 26-year old widow with two children. A broker, Verne was now a respectable businessman with a regular income; even his father approved of his situation. And he was able to court Madame Morel, with the result that they were married in January 1857.
Verne left his position at the Théâtre Lyrique, but he continued to write and research — in his spare hours. For the first time he had the opportunity to travel outside of France. Aristide Hignard, a composer from Nante who had been his neighbor during his early years in Paris and with whom he had collaborated, took him along on two sea voyages paid for by his brother. Verne went to Liverpool and Scotland from Bordeaux in 1858 and traveled to Sweden and Norway in 1861. Verne, who always made the most of his experiences, was very impressed by what he saw and would draw upon it in writing his novels.
Jules’ long-held idea was to develop a new genre of fiction, the Roman de la Science, the science-fiction novel, with an emphasis on travel. He had finished one novel along this line, Voyage en Ballon, and was able to show it to a publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Hetzel, a cabinet minister during the Second Republic had published the greats, Balzac, Hugo, Zola, Presently he was putting together a magazine that would be called Le magasin d’éducation et de récréation, directed toward families and featuring stories that would foster scientific education. Verne was exactly the kind of writer he was looking for. With revisions suggested by Hetzel, Jules Verne’s first novel, Three Weeks in a Balloon, concerning three Englishmen who travel explore Africa in a hydrogen balloon, was published on January 31, 1863. The book was highly successful and made Verne’s fortune.
Verne and Hetzel had a good working relationship, at least at first, and were bound to each other with a long-time contract. Verne was obligated to submit three volumes each year, which Hetzel would purchase outright. They would be presented to the public in serial form, to be published in the biweekly Le magasin d’éducation et de récréation. After completion of the serial, the story would be published in book form, usually in three formats, an inexpensive volume without illustrations, a small volume with some illustrations, and a deluxe edition, large and with many illustrations. These would ideally come out at the end of the year so that they could be bought as Christmas presents.
Jules Verne saw his science fiction novels (and science fiction fantasies) as part of a series he called Voyages extraordinaires. (There would eventually be 54 of them!) He tackled the subject matter of the genre with a boundless ambition. Among his most famous novels are, in addition to the aforementioned Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) was Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), In Search of the Castaways (1867), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), The Mysterious Island (1875), Michael Strogoff (1876), and Robur the Conqueror (1886) and its sequel Master of the World (1904) There were many more, lesser known works; Verne’s output continued to his death in 1905. Only one early story, Paris in the Twentieth Century, was rejected by Hetzel who deemed it too pessimistic. It was eventually published in 1994 and revealed Verne’s prescience in seeing how future man would rely inordinately upon technology in his everyday life. In his published novels Jules Verne predicted inventions such as the submarine, air and even space travel.
Verne also adapted some of his stories to the stage. The play Around the World in Eighty Days was particularly successful and from it Verne earned more money than from his novels, despite their wide popularity.
Verne’s most famous character, save perhaps for Phileas Fogg, the hero of Around the World in Eighty Days, was Captain Nemo, who appeared in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. A scientific genius, Nemo constructs a submarine, the Nautilus, with which he sails the seas sinking ships to avenge slave-trading, militarism, and imperialism. An enigmatic Indian prince, Captain Nemo was first conceived by Verne as an anti-Russian Pole, but he reluctantly altered the character to appease his publisher Hetzel, whose interference, at this point, was not appreciated and often ignored.
Wealthy and famous, Jules Verne was able to satisfy his childhood ambition to take sea voyages. Beginning in 1867, he purchased a series of yachts (all called Saint-Michel). Although his permanent residence was Amiens, he spent a lot of time on his yachts and did much of his writing while at sea. He sailed up and down the Atlantic coasts of France and England and, in Saint-Michel III, a steam yacht with a crew of 10, he ventured into the Mediterranean and to Scotland.
Jules Verne was honored by being made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 1870 and in 1892 was promoted to Officier de la Légion d’honneur. However, it was a source of disappointment to him that he was never inducted into the Académie Française, as a writer of his stature would have expected. The snub was calculated. While he had his admirers, such as George Sand, many literary figures, Émile Zola for instance, dismissed Verne as merely a popular author. His novels were not “literature.” He wrote genre fiction and his popularity with the masses meant that his work could not possess any real merit.
As he grew older, Jules’ books became somewhat darker in tone. He had abandoned the Catholicism he grew up with; he remained a deist, but not a Christian. His relationship with his son was troubling. Michel was a disappointment: against his father’s wishes he married an actress, then had children by an underage mistress. (And naturally he was always in debt and wanting money). Later in life, Jules and Michel reconciled. Causing even more trouble for him was his mentally deranged nephew, Gaston, who, in 1886, confronted Verne with a pistol and shot him in the left leg, causing him to limp for the rest of his life.
Jules Verne, in addition to the limp, suffered from various health problems that were not effectively addressed or treated. He had chronic digestive problems, high-blood pressure, and Type 2 diabetes. He succumbed to these ailments and died on March 24, 1905. He was 77.
Jules’ son Michel managed his father’s literary legacy after his death and arranged for the publication of Verne’s unpublished works. Michel, however, made many alterations in the stories, even to the extent of rewriting them. He had not been the only one to distort his father’s work. Verne’s books were extensively translated in his lifetime and afterwards. Many of the translations, though, were inaccurate or abridged. Some changed character names and even modified the stories. In English-speaking countries, where Verne was regarded as an author for children, shortened and simplified translations were the rule. Even in France, after his death, unabridged editions of Verne’s novels became rare.
Verne’s literary reputation rose decades after his death when scholars began approaching Verne’s work with a fresh eye. In 1935 Société Jules-Verne was founded. The Voyages extraordinaires were becoming literature, worthy of academic study. Faithful, full-lengthed editions of his novels were reappearing. By the 1960s and 70s Jules Verne had attained a cult status. In the United States interest in Verne was piqued after the release in 1954 of a film version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea produced by Walt Disney and starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason as Captain Nemo. In the next few years several films loosely based on Verne’s stories followed, among them a lavish star-studded Around the World in Eighty Days, produced by Mike Todd, Twentieth-Century Fox’s Journey to the Center of the Earth also with James Mason, From the Earth to the Moon with Joseph Cotten and George Sanders, The Mysterious Island with monsters devised by technical effects master Ray Harryhausen and with Herbert Lom playing Captain Nemo, and Master of the World starring Vincent Price. Hollywood has remained enamored with Jules Verne and now versions of his famous stories are constantly appearing. It is through the media of film that he is best known today. He is admired less as a literary stylist than as an uncannily accurate prophet of future technology.
Verne’s literary reputation rose decades after his death when scholars began approaching Verne’s work with a fresh eye. In 1935 Société Jules-Verne was founded. The Voyages extraordinaires were becoming literature, worthy of academic study. Faithful, full-lengthed editions of his novels were reappearing. By the 1960s and 70s Jules Verne had attained a cult status. In the United States interest in Verne was piqued after the release in 1954 of a film version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea produced by Walt Disney and starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason as Captain Nemo. In the next few years several films loosely based on Verne’s stories followed, among them a lavish star-studded Around the World in Eighty Days, produced by Mike Todd, Twentieth-Century Fox’s Journey to the Center of the Earth also with James Mason, From the Earth to the Moon with Joseph Cotten and George Sanders, The Mysterious Island with monsters devised by technical effects master Ray Harryhausen and with Herbert Lom playing Captain Nemo, and Master of the World starring Vincent Price. Hollywood has remained enamored with Jules Verne and now versions of his famous stories are constantly appearing. It is through the media of film that he is best known today. He is admired less as a literary stylist than as an uncannily accurate prophet of future technology.
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