Jules Verne

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Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. Verne's relationship with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel resulted in the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a highly researched adventure novel series that began in 1864, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne is widely regarded as one of France and Europe's top literary writers, where he has a large influence on the literary avant-garde and surrectionalism.

His reputation in Anglophone markets, where he had often been referred to as a writer of genre fiction or children's book, was drastically different, largely because of the fact that his books had been published (until the 1980s), which "literary fame... began to flourish." (Verne has been the second most translated author in the world since 1979, ranked between Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare.

He has been described as "The Fate of Science Fiction," a term that has also been given to H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Hugo Gernsback.

Life

Verne was born on February 8, 1828, on Île Feydeau, a small artificial island on the river Loire, within the town of Nantes. 4 Rue Olivier-de-Clisson, the home of his maternal grandmother, Dame Sophie Marie Adélade La Fue (born Guillochet de La Perrière). Pierre Verne, an attorney from Provins, and Sophie Allotte de La Fue, a Nantes woman from a distant Scottish descent from a local family of navigators and shipowners, were among his parents. The Verne family moved some hundred meters away to No. 2 in 1829. 2 Quai Jean Bart, where Verne's brother Paul was born the same year. Anne "Anna" (1836), Mathilde (1839), and Marie (1842) would follow.

Verne was sent to boarding school in Nantes, France, at the age of six. Madame Sambin, the instructor, was the widow of a naval captain who had died some 30 years ago. Madame Sambin often told the students that her husband was a shipwrecked castaway and that he would return like Robinson Crusoe from his desert island paradise. Verne's robinsonade will continue to be involved in many of his books, including The Mysterious Island (1874), Second Fatherland (1900), and The School for Robinsons (1882).

Verne moved to École Saint-Stanislas, a Catholic academy that was suited to his father's pious religious tastes in 1836. Verne soon established himself in mémoire (recitation from memory), geography, Greek, Latin, and singing. Pierre Verne bought a holiday house in the village of Chantenay (now part of Nantes) on the Loire in the same year 1836. Verne recalled a deep fascination with the river and the many merchant vessels that navigate it in his short memoir Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse (Memories of Childhood and Youth, 1890). He spent vacations at Brains, in the home of his uncle Prudent Allotte, a former shipowner who had travelled around the world and served as Mayor of Brains from 1828 to 1837. Verne and his uncle enjoyed in the Game of the Goose for an interminable round, and both the game and his uncle's name would be immortalized in two late books (The Will of an Eccentric (1900) and Robur the Conqueror (1886).

Legend has it that Verne obtained a cabin boy on the three-mast ship Coralie in 1839, at the age of 11, with the intention of heading to the Indies and bringing back a coral necklace for his cousin Caroline. The ship set out for the Indies, but it came first at Paimboeuf, where Pierre Verne arrived just in time to capture his son and make him promise to travel "only in his imagination." It's now known that the legend was created by Verne's first biographer, Marguerite Allotte de la Füye, although it may have been inspired by a true tale.

The Vernes family moved to No. 66 in 1840, where they had a large apartment in No. 68. 6 Rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, where the family's youngest child, Marie, was born in 1842, was born in 1842. Verne entered the Petit Séminaire de Saint-Donatien, a lay student, in the same year. Unfinished Un prêtre 1839 (A Priest in 1839), written in his teens and the earliest of his prose works to survive, ascribes the seminary to differing terms. Verne and his brother were enrolled in the Lycée Royal (now the Lycée Georges-Clemenceau) in Nantes from 1844 to 1846. He took the Baccalauréat at Rennes and received the grade "Good Enough" on 29 July 1846 after finishing studies in rhetoric and philosophy.

By 1847, when Verne was 19 years old, he had been writing long works in the style of Victor Hugo, beginning with Un prêtre in 1839 and ending with two verse tragedies, Alexandre VI and La Conspiration des poudres (The Gunpowder Plot). Verne, the firstborn son of the family, would not attempt to make money in literature but would rather inherit the family's laws.

Verne's father took him to Paris in 1847, mainly to begin his law school classes, and then, owing to family legend, he moved him temporarily from Nantes. Caroline, his cousin, with whom he was in love, was married on April 27th to Émile Dezaunay, a man of 40, with whom she would have five children.

Verne returned to Nantes for his father's assistance in preparing for the second year after a brief stay in Paris, where he passed first-year law exams. (Provincial law students were still in that period and were compelled to attend examinations in Paris.) He met Rose Herminie Arnaud Grossetière, a young woman one year older than him, while in Nantes and fell in love with her. He wrote and dedicated some thirty poems to her, including La Fille de l'air (The Daughter of Air), which describes her as "blonde and mysterious / winged and transparent." His passion seems to have been reciprocated, at least for a brief period of time, but Grossetière's parents were dissatisfied with the prospect that their daughter marrying a young student of a turbulent future. Armand Terrien de la Haye, a wealthy landowner ten years her senior, married her instead on 19 July 1848.

Verne's sudden marriage brought her into deep dissatisfaction. He wrote a hallucinatory letter to his mother, who seems to have been born in a state of half-drunkenness, in which, under the pretext of a dream, he expressed his misery. This requited but aborted love affair appears to have permanently marked the writer and his books, with a large number of young women married against their will (Gérande in Master Zacharius (1854), Ellen in A Floating City (1871), etc. To the degree that scholar Christian Chelebourg attributed the recurring theme to a "Herminie complex," he said. Verne retaliated against his birthplace and Nantes society, which he condemned in his poem La sixième Ville de France (The Sixth City of France).

Verne left Nantes in 1848, where his father encouraged him to complete law studies and apply to law as a profession. He gained permission from his father to rent a furnished apartment at 24 Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie, which he shared with Édouard Bonamy, another Nantes alumnus. Verne had stayed at 2 Rue Thérèse, his aunt Charuel's home on the Butte Saint-Roch, on his 1847 Paris visit.)

Verne arrived in Paris at a time of national turmoil: the French Revolution of 1848. Louis Philippe I had been deposed and had fled in February; a provisional government of the French Second Republic took power on February 24th, but political demonstrations continued, and social unrest remained, and political unrest remained. Barricades in Paris soared in June, and the government sent Louis-Eugène Cavaignac to stymie the rebellion. Verne arrived in the city just before the inauguration of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as the Republic's first president, a state of affairs that would not exist until the French coup of 1851. Verne wrote to his family about the bombarded state of the city after the recent June Days uprising, but he assured them that the Bastille Day anniversary had gone without a single conflict.

Verne made a symbolic entry into Paris by utilizing his family connections. His uncle, Francisque de Chatêaubourg, welcomed him into literary salons, and Verne was especially fond of Mme de Barrère, a friend of his mother's. He fuelled his obsession for the theater by writing multiple plays while continuing his law studies. "I was certainly under the influence of Victor Hugo, and I was extremely moved by reading and re-reading his books," Verne later recalled. I could have recited by the entire pages of Notre Dame de Paris, but it was his dramatic work that most inspired me." Aristide Hignard, a young composer with whom Verne soon became good friends, and Verne wrote several texts for Hignard to set as chansons, which was another source of creative inspiration for me.

Verne's letters to his parents during this period were mostly focused on finances and a rash of violent stomach cramps, the first of many he would suffer from throughout his life. (Modern scholars have speculated that he suffered from colitis; Verne believed the disease was passed from his mother's side.) An outbreak of cholera in March 1849 exacerbated these medical concerns. In 1851, Verne's first of four attacks of facial paralysis, but yet another health issue will strike. These attacks, rather than being psychosomatic, were triggered by an inflammation in the middle ear, although Verne's cause was unknown throughout his life.

Verne had to enlist in the French military last year, but the sorting process saved him, which was a great relief. "You should already know, dear papa, what I think about the military life and the lives of these domestic servants in livery," he told his father. ... To perform such duties, you must give up all respect." Verne's zealous antiwar sentiments, to the dismay of his father, would remain steadfast throughout his life.

Verne continued his law studies and graduated with a licence en droit in January 1851 despite writing profusely and frequenting the salons.

Verne first connected with Alexandre Dumas in 1849 through the mutual acquaintance of a prominent chirologist of the time, the Chevalier d'Arpentigny. Verne became close friends with Dumas' son, Alexandre Dumas fils, and gave him a manuscript for a stage play, Les Pailles rompues (The Broken Straws). The two young men revived the performance together, and Dumas's mother arranged the production at the Opéra-National in Paris, which opened on June 1850.

Verne met with Pierre-Michel Chevalier, formerly known as "Pitre-Chevalier"), the editor-in-chief of the magazine Musée des familles in 1851. (The Family Museum) Pitre-Chevalier was looking for articles on geography, history, science, and technology, and was determined that the educational component would be made available to a large number of interested audiences using a simple prose style or a colorful fictional story. Verne, with his obsession for diligent study, especially in geography, was a natural for the job. Verne first gave him a short historical adventure story called The First Ships of the Mexican Navy, written in the style of James Fenimore Cooper, whose books had a major influence on him. Pitre-Chevalier appeared in July 1851 and published A Voyage in a Balloon in the same year. (August 1851). Verne would describe the new book as "the first hint of what was supposed to be" after it was based on thrilling narrative, travel tips, and extensive historical research.

Verne was put in touch with Jules Seveste, a stage director who had taken over the Théâtre Historique's directorship and renamed it the Théâtre Lyrique, according to Dumas fils. Seveste gave Verne the job of secretary of the theater, but with no compensation attached. Verne accepted, and the opportunity to write and produce many comedies in collaboration with Hignard and Michel Carré was used to create and produce several comic operas. Verne, a bachelor at the Théâtre Lyrique, joined ten colleagues to create the Onze-sans-femme (Eleven Bachelors) to celebrate his work at the Théâtre Lyrique.

For some time, Verne's father begged him to abandon writing and begin a career as a lawyer. Verne, on the other hand, stated in his letters that he would only find success in literature. When his father offered Verne his own Nantes law practice to his son, the pressure to plan for a secure future in law hit its climax in January 1852. Faced with this ultimatum, Verne decided to continue his literary life and avoid the job entirely, writing: "Am I not allowed to follow my own intuition?" Because I know who I am that I am, I know what I am capable of being one day."

Meanwhile, Verne was spending a lot of time at the Bibliothèque nationale de France doing research for his books and fueling his enthusiasm for science and new discoveries, particularly in geography. Verne encountered the illustrious geographer and explorer Jacques Arago, who continued to travel despite his blindness (he had lost his sight entirely in 1837). The two guys became close friends, and Arago's insightful and witty accounts of his travels led Verne toward a new breed of literature: travel writing.

Two new Verne works appeared in the Musée des familles in 1852: Martin Paz, a novella set in Lima that Verne wrote in 1851 and published in 1852, and No. A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss, a one-act comedy full of racy double entendres; a man n'amasse pas mousse, or delving Stone Gatherings No Moss. The magazine published Verne's short story Master Zacharius, an E. T. Hoffmann-like fantasy, followed shortly by A Winter Amid the Ice, a polar adventure tale whose themes closely followed many of Verne's books in April and May 1854. Some nonfiction popular science papers were also published by the Musée, although unsigned, are attributed to Verne. Verne's employment for the magazine was cut short in 1856 after he suffered with Pitre-Chevalier and refused to contribute (a refusal he would not keep until 1863, when Pitre-Chevalier died and the magazine was under new editorship).

Verne began to imagine inventing a new kind of novel, a "Roman de la Science" (new science), which would enable him to incorporate substantial portions of the factual information he so enjoyed reading in the Bibliothèque. Alexandre Dumas, who had written something similar to an unfinished book, Isaac Laquedem, and who had cheered Verne's cause, is said to have discussed the project.

Jules Seveste, Verne's employer at the Théâtre Lyrique, was killed in 1854 as a result of another epidemic of cholera, as well as a good friend. Despite the fact that his service was limited to a year or more, Verne stayed connected to the theater for several years after Seveste's death, seeing new productions come to fruition. He also wrote plays and musical comedies, the bulk of which were never performed.

Verne de Viane, a French immigrant, travelled to Amiens in May 1856 to be the best man at the wedding of a Nantes friend, Auguste Lelarge, to An Amiens woman Aimée du Fraysne de Viane. Verne, who was invited to stay with the bride's family, welcomed them warmly, befriending the entire household, and becoming more attracted to Honorine Anne Hébée Morel, a widow of two young children. He jumped at her brother's offer to start working with a broker in order to find a secure source of income as well as a chance to sue Morel in earnest. Verne's father was initially suspicious but then gave in to his son's demands for recognition in November 1856. Verne, with his financial situation finally looking promising, received Morel and his families' respect, and the pair were married on January 10, 1857.

Verne has fallen into new business ventures, leaving his position at the Théâtre Lyrique and taking up a full-time position as an agent de change on the Paris Bourse, where he became the associate of broker Fernand Eggly. Verne woke up early each morning so he would have time to write before going to the Bourse for the day's work; in the remainder of his spare time, he continued to socialize with the Onze-Sans-Femme club (all eleven of the club's "bachelors" had by this time and had not married by this time. He also used the Bibliothèque to do scientific and historical study, much of which he turned into notecards for future use — a process he'll continue to use for the remainder of his life. Verne "did better in repartee than in company," according to a colleague's recollections.

Verne and Aristide Hignard took advantage of a sea voyage for no cost from Bordeaux to Liverpool and Scotland in July 1858. Verne's first trip outside France amazed him, and he recollected his memories to form the backbone of a semi-autobiographical book, Backwards to Britain (written in the fall and winter of 1859–1860 but not published until 1989). Hignard and Verne were taken from Paris to Stockholm on a second complimentary voyage in 1861, from where they travelled to Christiania and Telemark. Verne returned to Hignard, Denmark, but he was forced to return to Paris on August 3rd, his only biological son, Michel.

In the meantime, Verne continued to work on a "Roman de la Science" draft, which he influenced by his "love for maps and the world's greatest explorers. It began as a tale of travel around Africa and would eventually be published in Five Weeks in a Balloon, his first published book.

Verne's correspondence with publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel in 1862 brought him into contact, and he gave him the manuscript of his burgeoning book. Hetzel, the former editor of Honoré de Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, and other well-known writers, had been planning to publish a high-quality family magazine in which entertaining fiction would combine with scientific education. Verne regarded Verne as a perfect contributor to such a publication, with his evident desire for scrupulously researched adventure stories, and suggested that Verne make changes, including Verne's. Verne made the revised revisions within two weeks and returned to Hetzel with the final version, which now appears as Five Weeks in a Balloon. Hetzel first published it in 1863 on January 31.

Hetzel signed a long-term deal with Verne, which Hetzel will receive three volumes of text per year, one of which Hetzel will buy outright for a flat fee. Verne landed a steady paycheck and a good outlet for writing at last, which was accepted right away. The bulk of his books will be serialized in Hetzel's Magasin for the remainder of his life, beginning with his second book for Hetzel, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1864–65).

Hetzel announced his literary and educational aspirations for Verne's books in 1866, saying in a preface that Verne's books would form the Voyages extraordinaires (Extraordinary Voyages or Extraordinary Journeys) and that Verne's intention was to outline all the scientific, geological, physical, and astronomical data amassed by modern science and to recount in a new and attractive way in a book format that is his own. Verne, a late in life, revealed that this commission had been to depict the earth, not the earth alone, but the universe as well. There is evidence that there is no such thing as a style in a book of adventure, but it isn't true." Despite this, he also stated that the scheme was very ambitious: "Yes!" says the project's founder. However, the Earth is extremely wide, and life is very short. One would have to live to be at least 100 years old in order to leave a completed job behind."

Hetzel influenced many of Verne's books directly, particularly in the first few years of their collaboration, and Verne was initially so eager to find a publisher who accepted almost all of Hetzel's recommendations. Verne wrote a completely new conclusion in which Hatteras survived, for example, when Hetzel disapproved of Captain Hatteras' original climax, as well as the death of the title character. Hetzel's next attempt, Paris in the Twentieth Century, was also rejected by Verne, who believed that its skepticism of the future and its condemnation of technological progress were too cynical for a family newspaper. (The manuscript, which had been missing for some time after Verne's death, was finally published in 1994.)

The partnership between publisher and writer changed dramatically around 1869, when Verne and Hetzel were brought into conflict over the manuscript for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. Verne had first imagined Captain Nemo as a Polish scientist whose acts of vengeance were directed against the Russians who had murdered his family during the January Revolution. Hetzel, not keen to alienate the lucrative Russian market for Verne's books, has requested that Nemo be designated as a villain of the slave trade, a development that would make him an unambiguous hero. Verne, who protested vehemently against the change, has created a compromise in which Nemo's past is left cryptic. Verne became much cooler in his dealings with Hetzel after this disagreement, taking suggestions into account but often dismissing them outright.

Verne was one of two or more volumes a year from that point. Voyage au centre de la Terre (Journey to the Moon Center of the Earth, 1864); De la Terre à la Lune (from the Earth to the Moon, 1869); and Le tour du monde en quatre vey days (Around the World in Eighty Days), the first of these are the most popular of these are: from the Earth to the Moon, 1865); Verne could now live off his writings, but the bulk of his income came from Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts days (1874) and Michel Strogoff (1876), which he wrote with Adolphe d'Ennery.

Verne bought a small boat, the Saint-Michel, in 1867, which he later replaced with the Saint-Michel II and the Saint-Michel III as his financial situation improved. He sailed around Europe on board the Saint-Michel III. The bulk of his stories were first serialized in the Magazine d'Éducation et de Récréation, a Hetzel biweekly publication, before being published in book form. In 1874, Paul Turner assisted with the Mont-Blanc's 40th French climb and a collection of short stories. Verne is wealthy and well-known.

Meanwhile, Michel Verne married an actor against his father's wishes, had two children by an underage mistress, and buried himself in debts. As Michel grew older, the father-son relationship got stronger.

Verne, who was raised as a Roman Catholic, moved toward deism. According to some scholars, his books represent a deist belief because they often include the possibility of God or divine providence, but they rarely discuss the concept of Christ.

Verne's twenty-year-old nephew, Gaston, fired twice at him twice with a pistol on 9 March 1886. The first bullet missed, but the second one struck Verne's left leg, giving him a permanent limp that could not be overcome. This event was hushed up in the media, but Gaston's life was spent in a mental hospital.

Jules Verne began publishing darker books after his mother and Hetzel's deaths (who died in 1886). He entered politics in 1888 and was elected town councillor of Amiens, where he advocated several changes and served for fifteen years.

On 9 April 1870, Verne was made a Knight of France's Legion of Honour and then promoted to Officer in the Legion of Honour rank, which was later upgraded to Officer in the Legion of Honour.

Verne died at his home in Amiens, 44 Boulevard Longueville, on March 24, 1905, when ill with persistent diabetes and issues from a stroke that paralyzed his right side. (Now Boulevard Jules-Verne). After Jules' death, his uncle, Michel Verne, oversaw the publication of the books Invasion of the Sea and The Lighthouse at the End of the World. The Voyages extraordinaires collection continued for many years after beginning with two volumes per year at the same rate. Michel Verne had made significant improvements in these stories, and the original versions were eventually published by the Jules Verne Society at the end of the twentieth century (Société Jules Verne). Michel Verne published The Barsac Mission in 1919 (French: L'Étonnante Aventure Barsac), whose original drafts contained references to Esperanto, a word that his father was particularly keen on.

Verne's great-grandson discovered his ancestor's as-yet-unpublished book Paris in 1989, which was then released in 1994.

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