Jules Verne Essay, Research Paper

Jules Verne

Going to moon, a balloon trip around the world, adventure under the sea,

all this in the late 1800s? All this was possible in the writings of Jules Verne.

Jules Verne was born in Nantes on February 8, 1828. He had a vivid imagination

and as a child, he often sailed down the Loire River with his brother. He always

wondered about air and undersea travel. In the 1800s, none of these advances

were discovered.

His father was a lawyer and wanted young Verne to be one, too. Jules was

sent to Paris to study law and while he was there, he became interested in

literature. He graduated with a degree in law in 1850. Jules began to write and

give private law lessons in Paris. His father voiced some concern in pursuing

literature as well as law.

When Jules was in his young 20s, he wrote operettas librettos for about 2

years while continuing to practice law. He was appointed as the Secretary of the

Theatre Lyrique in Paris. He made some letters to his mother commenting on his

shabby clothes compared to the clothes poets there. He started to become a very

busy people.

Verne was married on January 10, 1857 to Honorine de Viane. He only had 1

child, a boy named Michel, who was born on August 3, 1861. Verne also had 2

stepdaughters, Valentine, and Suzanne. Michel grew up to be a very disobedient

child. Verne tried many means of stopping this delinquency. He put Michel in

jail in an attempt to stop the “madness”. He was really unhappy over his son’s

behavior problem. Late 1879, Verne ended up throwing Michel out of the house.

Michel ran off and married an actress. In 1887, he attended and recognized

Michel’s second marriage which helped in reviving the relationship between

father and son.

Jules Verne was an avid traveler and sailor. He visited many places with

his brother, Paul. Paul helped Verne in many technical parts of his novel. In

1859, he and Paul made a summer trip to Scotland. Verne was very impressed by

Scotland as a whole and it became the setting in one of Verne’s novels. He also

visited North America for a week. He visited New York, Buffalo, Niagara Falls,

Toronto. He loved America and was very sad that he was never going to come again.

Verne owned 3 boats, a sailboat, a sailing yacht, and a stem yacht. They were

christened Saint-Michel 1, Saint-Michel 2, and Saint-Michel 3, respectively. He

loved sailing and visited many place of Europe with his beloved boats.

In 1869, Verne moved to Le Crotoy. His family liked this seaside town and

it was less burden on Verne’s paycheck. This was where his boats were docked,

even after they moved again to Verne’s next and final homeplace, Amiens in 1872.

Even though he was famous, he contributed to his community in many way a

lot of times. He received the Legion Of Honor, a French order of Merit

instituted by Napoleon in 1802. It recognizes people for achievement in civil or

military life . He acquired the Honor only days before the Franco-Prussian War.

In Amiens, he was elected to different positions in the town legislature. In

1872, he was voted into the Acad?mie d’Amiens, a local learned society. He was

also elected to the Town Council of Amiens when he was 60. He said “My sole aim

is to make myself useful?.” He was very active in his life.

1863 marked the beginning of a new genre in literature. “Five Weeks in a

Balloon” appeared in bookstores. It became the first science-fiction book

published. The publisher, Jules Hetzel, and Verne had started a friendship that

was to last for life when Hetzel accepted “Five Weeks in a Balloon”. “Five Weeks

in a Balloon” became an instant success. It quickly soared to the best-seller

list in both the children’s and adult’s market. He started working on other

books after the success of his first book. He also took a job in Hetzel’s

company. He was always a very busy man. Verne’s books were some of the most

popular of his time. What he writes about air travel back then is what we hear

about space travel nowadays. He also started the dreams of traveling to the

bottom of the ocean and venturing deep to the center of the Earth.

Some of his most popular books were: “Five Weeks in a Balloon” (1863), “A

Journey to the Center of the Earth” (1864), “The Mysterious Island” (1870),

“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” (1870), his most popular, “Around the

World in Eighty Days” (1872), and “Michael Strogoff” (1876).

“Around the World in Eighty Days” was about Phileas Fogg and his servant

Passepartout traveling around, visiting London, Paris, Brindisi, Suez, Bombay,

and other places. All of Jules Verne’s books give his readers a way to imagine

about things they’ve never seen, such as airplanes, submarines and spaceships.

Places, people never thought of going to and have never been, for example, the

moon, the center of the earth, and the bottom of the ocean. Some of his books

have been made into numerous plays and movies. “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under

the Sea” and “Around the World in Eighty Days” have been adapted a lot of times

by various movie companies.

March, 1886 marked the beginning when Verne’s life began to fall apart. He

was shot in the foot by his nephew and had a permanent limp as a result. His

great friend and publisher, Jules Hetzel passed away on March 17, 1886. His

mother died next, in February of 1887. He was very sad over the death of mother

as that marked the fact that both his parents were gone. He became further

immobilized in June, 1893, when he had to battle attacks of dizziness, leg and

eye problems. His immediate family as a youth all left him with the death of his

much loved brother, Paul in 1897.

At the turn of the century, Verne stayed as an active person and

continued to write, even with age and illness. March 24, 1905, his family were

all with him as he lived his last day of his life. 4 days later, he was buried

at La Madeleine in Amiens. With the burial, the world lost the “Father of

Science Fiction”, a great writer and a prophet.

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