Archiv der Kategorie: Verne, Jules

French author, was born at Nantes on the 8th of February 1828. After completing his studies at the Nantes lycée, he went to Paris to study for the bar. About 1848, in conjunction with Michel Carré, he wrote librettos for two operettas, and in 1850 his verse comedy, Les Pailles rompues, in which Alexandre Dumas fils had some share, was produced at the Gymnase. For some years his interests alternated between the theatre and the bourse, but some travellers’ stories which he wrote for the Musée des Familles seem to have revealed to him the true direction of his talent—the delineation, viz., of delightfully extravagant voyages and adventures to which cleverly prepared scientific and geographical details lent an air of versimilitude. Something of the kind had been done before, after kindred methods, by Cyrano de Bergerac, by Swift and Defoe, and later by Mayne Reid. But in his own particular application of plausible scientific apparatus Verne undoubtedly struck out a department for himself in the wide literary genre of voyages imaginaires. His first success was obtained with Cinq semaines en ballon, which he wrote for Hetzel’s Magazin d’Éducation in 1862, and thenceforward, for a quarter of a century, scarcely a year passed in which Hetzel did not publish one or more of his fantastic stories, illustrated generally by pictures of the most lurid and sensational description. The most successful of these romances include: Voyage au centre de la terre (1864); De la terre à la lune (1865); Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (1869); Les Anglais au pôle nord (1870); and Voyage autour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, which first appeared in Le Temps in 1872. The adaptation of this last (produced with success at the Porte St Martin theatre on the 8th of November 1874) and of another excellent tale, Michael Strogoff (at the Châtelet, 1880), both dramas being written in conjunction with Adolphe d’Ennery, proved the most acceptable of Verne’s theatrical pieces. The novels were translated into the various European languages—and some even into Japanese and Arabic—and had an enormous success in England. But after 1877, when he published Hector Servadac, a romance of existence upon a comet, the writer’s invention began to show signs of fatigue (his kingdom had been invaded in different directions and at different times times by such writers as R. M. Ballantyne, Rider Haggard and H. G. Wells), and he even committed himself, somewhat unguardedly, to very gloomy predictions as to the future of the novel. Jules Verne’s own novels, however, will certainly long continue to delight readers by reason of their sparkling style, their picturesque verve—apparently inherited directly from Dumas—their amusing and good-natured national caricatures, and the ingenuity with which the love element is either subordinated or completely excluded. M. Verne, who was always extremely popular in society, divided his time for the most part between Paris, his home at Amiens and his yacht. He was a member of the Legion of Honour, and several of his romances were crowned by the French Academy, but he was never enrolled among its members. He died at Amiens on the 24th of March 1905. His brother, Paul Verne, contributed to the Transactions of the French Alpine Club, and wrote an Ascension du Mont Blanc for his brother’s collection of Voyages extraordinaires in 1874.

An Antarctic Mystery

Publiziert am 2. August 2018 von Jazzybee

An Antarctic Mystery – Jules Verne

Hardly ever in literature has any author adopted the plot of another and carried it forward beyond the lines of its creator. Yet this is precisely what Jules Verne has done with Poe’s story called Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, and the two great inventive minds thus unite in forming Verne’s tale entitled An Antarctic Mystery. The author has brought to the telling of his story all the old creative skill, the dashing love of adventure, and a surprising show of knowledge of the flora and fauna and the geography of the Antarctic seas. The hero of the book takes passage from the far-off Kerguelen Islands on the ship Halbrane, whose captain, Len Guy, … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The Begum’s Fortune

Publiziert am 25. Juli 2018 von Jazzybee

The Begum’s Fortune – Jules Verne

Jules Verne’s conceptions are as brilliant as ever. Dr. Sarrasin, a French savant, simple in taste and absorbed in science, delivers an address at the Brighton Scientific Association. The publication of it with his name in ‘ The Daily Telegraph’ discovers him to a London lawyer as the lost heir of the Begum, whom his uncle had married in India. He inherits a moderate property of twenty-one millions sterling, all ready for him in the Bank of England. Dr. Schultz, a German professor, also a connection by marriage, threatens to dispute it. They settle the dispute by dividing it. Dr. Sarrasin founds in the Rocky Mountains a city of health, modelled on Dr. Richardson’s … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Publiziert am 17. Mai 2018 von Jazzybee

Journey To The Center Of The Earth – Jules Verne

In the spring of 1863 Professor Lidenbrock finds a secret, runic manuscript, that was written by an Icelandic alchemist hundreds of years before. It tells about a journey to the center of the earth which this alchemist claims to have made. Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel and their guide Hans decide to follow this route into a secret subterranean world … An adventure classic for the past hundred and several hundred more years to come!

Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Format: Paperback.

Journey To The Center Of The Earth.

ISBN: 9783849671969.

Available at amazon.com and other venues.

 

Plot summary of Journey to the Center of the Earth (from … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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Around The World In Eighty Days

Publiziert am 4. Mai 2018 von Jazzybee

Around The World In Eighty Days – Jules Verne

Phileas Fogg, a respectable English gentleman of phlegmatic temperament and methodical habits, maintains, during a discussion at his club in London, that a man can travel around the world in eighty days; and to prove it, he makes a wager of half his fortune that he can do it himself in that time. The bet is accepted, and he starts the same night, taking his French servant Passepartout with him. He wins his wager, after a series of adventures in which nature, man, accident, and the novelist combine to defeat him, but are all baffled by his unfailing resource, iron will, invincible coolness, and Napoleonic readiness to sacrifice everything else to … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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20000 Leagues Under the Seas

Publiziert am 30. Oktober 2017 von Jazzybee

20000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne

‘20000 Leagues Under the Sea’ was one of the first science fiction novels ever and has been a classic in this genre ever since its publication in 1870. It tells the world-famous story of Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus and a journey all around the earth.

20000 Leagues Under the Seas

20000 Leagues Under the Seas

Format: Paperback.

20000 Leagues Under the Sea.

ISBN: 9783849675899.

Available at amazon.com and other venues.

 

Plot summary of 20000 Leagues Under The Sea (from Wikipedia):

During the year 1866, ships of several nations spot a mysterious sea monster, which some suggest to be a giant narwhal. The United States government assembles an expedition in New York City to find … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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Mistress Branican

Publiziert am 30. Oktober 2017 von Jazzybee

Mistress Branican – Jules Verne

A book from the pen of Jules Verne is its own best advertisement. Mistress Branican shows no falling off in the author’s imaginative faculties or vivacity. This is the first of bis books in which a woman has been made the central figure. Perhaps the flying trips around the world made by Miss Bisland and ” Nelly Bly”gave him the idea. At any rate, it is a good one. Mistress Branican, however, traveled with a caravan, and not with a small hand-bag. The adventures of this lady on her travels are thrilling and humorous at the same time, and the whole is told with that air of sincerity which is peculiar to the romances of … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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