So if we were to draw up a list of the most influential
authors of the last two centuries, Jules Verne
would have to be right near the top. Oh, absolutely.
You can almost picture him there, probably carrying
a giant file of meticulously researched notes,
maybe standing next to a model of the Nautilus.
That's the image, isn't it? And we all know the
titles. 20 ,000 Leagues Under the Seas, Journeying
to the Center of the Earth, Around the World
in 80 Days. I mean, he basically defined adventure
and the future for generations. And that reach
is, I mean, it's statistically undeniable. The
sheer global scale of his influence is just staggering.
How staggering are we talking? Well, since 1979,
Jules Verne has been the second most translated
author in the entire world. Second. Who's first?
Agatha Christie. So he's ranking just below her,
but pulling ahead of William Shakespeare. Wow.
Ahead of Shakespeare. And just in the 2010s,
he was the most translated French author, period.
That's a legacy that's just truly universal.
A universal legacy. But one that's, and this
is the fascinating part, built on a surprisingly
fragile foundation. And often based on a pretty
profound misunderstanding. Yes. And that's really
the core conflict we're here to... unpack. Because
despite all that incredible success and influence,
you find the man himself late in life stating
that the great regret of his life was that he'd
never taken any place in French literature. That
one statement just fundamentally shifts the lens,
doesn't it? It forces you to reevaluate everything.
So our mission today is really to move beyond
that simplistic label he always gets, you know,
the father of science fiction. We need to see
Verne as a much more complex literary artist.
And a passionate man, too. Yeah. Marked by these
really intense personal conflicts early on. Absolutely.
And above all, a writer whose career was indelibly
shaped, and you can argue in many ways artistically
compromised, by the commercial demands of his...
very powerful publisher, Pierre Jules Hetzel.
So for this, we've used an extensive biographical
and critical review. It really digs into his
maritime origins, the surprising depth of his
research process, and critically, this tale of
two reputations. The one he earned in France.
And the damaged sort of watered down version
that was distributed across the entire English
speaking world. So how could an author whose
work defined exploration and technology be so
consistently edited, simplified, and even dismissed
in one half of the world? While at the same time,
in his home country, he's being fought over as
a literary giant worthy of university study.
That's the question. So we're going to dive deep
into those sources and try to find the real man,
the complex artist, behind the marvelous machine.
Okay, let's unpack this. Where do we begin? We
have to start... like all good adventure stories
should, right at the water's edge. Nantes, Brittany,
and 1828. You just can't understand why Verne
wrote so much about the sea until you understand
where he was born. It's everything. He literally
came into the world on Il Fado, which at the
time was an artificial island sitting right in
the middle of the Loire River. Right, so that
geography is absolutely critical. The Loire was
this huge artery of commerce flowing directly
out into the Atlantic. So his childhood view
wasn't of... you know, Parisian salons or quiet
fields. No, it was mass rigging and these huge
merchant vessels arriving from all these faraway
ports. His family life just reinforced this.
In what way? Well, his father, Pierre Verne,
was a respected... So that family tension was
baked in right from the very start. It really
was. You've got law and respectable society on
one side, and then the unpredictable but fascinating
life of the sea on the other. And Verne himself
recalled having a deep fascination with the Loire
and just the constant traffic of the merchant
vessels. It was his whole world. Concernation
wasn't just some abstract thing, was it? It was
personal. It was very personal. He spent his
vacations at a place called Brains, staying with
his uncle, Prudent a lot. Uncle Prudent. And
Prudent wasn't just some former ship owner. The
source confirms he was a retired mariner who
had actually sailed around the world. Imagine
that. Right. Imagine growing up in 19th century
France with a great uncle who could tell you
stories about the entire globe. It provided not
just inspiration, but an early real life model
for global exploration. So that real world background
gave him the setting. But the theme that really
defined his work, this idea of escape and survival,
the Robinsonod. that was planted by his teacher
at six years old yeah at six years old it's a
fascinating psychological detail it is in 1834
jules was sent to a boarding school where the
teacher was a woman named madame sambin her husband
was a naval captain who had been missing presumed
lost at sea for decades that's incredibly tragic
but instead of mourning she would tell the children
that her husband was merely a castaway that he
would one day return ingeniously surviving, just
like Daniel Defoe's character, Robinson Crusoe.
Wow. That is such a powerful image to plant in
a child's mind. Isn't it? It turns loss into
promise and absence into a potential adventure.
It's like a blueprint for heroism through isolation.
Exactly. And that blueprint stayed with him for
his entire life. It became a major theme. He
kept coming back to it. He repeatedly explored
this idea of characters being marooned and then
forced to rebuild civilization through sheer
scientific ingenuity. You see it most clearly
in The Mysterious Island in 1874, where the protagonists
literally transform an island into this technological
paradise. Right, but also in The School for Robinsons
in 1882, and even really late in his career with
The Castaways of the Flag in 1900. It's this
permanent narrative fixation, a kind of psychological
safe harbor for him. Okay, so speaking of formative
childhood events, we have to tackle the really
famous story that almost every English biography
includes. The Coralie legend. Ah, yes. Can you
tell us the actual story versus the myth that's
been built up around it? Of course. The famous
story, the one everyone knows, is that an 11
-year -old Jules, desperate to win a coral necklace
for his cousin Caroline, snuck aboard the three
-mast ship Coralie as a cabin boy. His plan being
to sail to the Indies to earn his fortune. Right.
And his father supposedly caught him at the very
last minute and forced him to promise that he
would only travel in his imagination from then
on. I have to admit, I always loved that anecdote.
It just perfectly sets up the armchair adventurer
narrative. But the source confirms it's largely
fictionalized, isn't it? It's highly exaggerated.
It was popularized by his first biographer, who
was actually his niece, Marguerite Allatelafieu,
and she likely did it to create a more dramatic,
more marketable origin story. So there was no
grand escape. Well, there might have been a minor
real incident where he tried to run away, but
the sweeping cinematic escape on the Coralie
to retrieve a necklace, that's basically a piece
of historical fiction. Wait, so the legendary
promise, travel only in his imagination, was
essentially manufactured by his own niece? It
seems so. That's an incredible betrayal of the
historical record. But at the same time, it's
the perfect, almost prophetic summary of his
later life. It is, and it serves as a really
powerful illustration of how easily myth can
replace reality, especially when it provides
such a clean narrative arc. So the truth is that
his imagination was spurred by something much
more mundane. By rejection and duty, not a foiled
sea voyage. And duty meant law. His father, Pierre
Verne, fully expected Jules as the firstborn
son to inherit the established, respectable family
law practice in Nantes. So in 1847, Jules was
sent off to Paris for law school. He was technically
fulfilling his filial duty, but his passion was
completely elsewhere. He just threw himself into
the Parisian literary world. He did. He was heavily
influenced by Victor Hugo's romantic movement
and started writing serious theater. This is
where he befriends Alexandre Dumas, Phil's the
son of the famous novelist. So he's trying to
be a serious man of letters. He's sharing a flat
with the composer Aristide Dignard, just soaking
up that whole artistic scene. He did manage to
pass his law exams, earning his license on draw
in January 1851. But by then, his heart belonged
entirely to the stage and the page. And this
conflict with his father came to an inevitable
climax in January 1852. His father issued the
ultimate ultimatum. return to Nantes immediately
and take over the established practice or be
cut off financially. That's the moment of decision
that determined his entire career. And he refused.
The source gives us his definitive, really courageous
reply. He wrote, It was a complete rejection
of his father's expectations and that whole secure
bourgeois life that was waiting for him in Nantes.
So his professional life was determined by this
profound break with his father's world. But his
romantic life was similarly defined by an earlier
and you could argue equally painful rejection.
This is the Hermione complex. Exactly. A wound
that really marked his literary output forever.
So tell us about the Hermione complex. It sounds
like something that reaches far deeper than just
a simple heartbreak. It does. While he was studying
in Paris, Verne met a woman named Rose Harmony
Arnaud Grostier back in Nantes in 1848. And he
fell just intensely and completely in love with
her. He was writing her poetry. Dozens of romantic
poems. For him, this was the central defining
romance of his young life. But her parents objected,
I assume, just as his father would have objected
to his literary ambitions. Precisely. Hermione's
parents rejected Verne as a potential husband
because he was just a law student with this uncertain...
maybe even scandalous ambition of becoming a
writer. Not a good prospect. Not at all. So they
quickly married her off instead to a man named
Armand Therrien Delahaye, who was a very rich
landowner. So the woman he loved was taken from
him not because she didn't love him back, but
because of his uncertain financial and social
status. That must have been a permanent wound.
It would have just confirmed his suspicion that
non -dissociety prioritized wealth over passion
or artistic merit. It absolutely was. The scholar
Christian Schelleberg actually coined the term
Hermione complex to describe the direct psychological
fallout, which you can see across Verne's entire
bibliography. So this complex refers to a recurring
literary trope in his work. Yes, the trope of
the young, innocent woman married against her
will, often to an older, richer or socially superior
man, which then results in tragedy, emotional
isolation or just desperation. Can you give us
some examples of how this psychological wound
showed up in his novels? Sure. Look at Gironde
in his early novella Master Zacharias from 1854.
She's engaged to a wealthy but heartless suitor
and faces tragedy. Or you could consider Sava
in Matthias Sandor from 1885. What happens to
her? Her father's enemy arranges her marriage
purely for financial gain. And then famously,
there's Ellen in a floating city from 1871 who
is trapped in a terrible marriage and is desperately
seeking escape. So these characters, trapped
by financial and societal constraints, are just
direct projections of his painful experience.
And his grudge against the rigid social structure
that denied him his love. It's a really powerful
realization. The adventure writer, the supposed
profit of technology, was actually driven not
by the purity of science, but by this profound
emotional pain and the deep desire to see justice
done for the wronged and the displaced. Absolutely.
And you have to remember, the early life challenges
weren't just romantic and professional. They
were also physical. That's right. The sources
detail his health issues. He suffered from these
recurring, intense stomach cramps. What modern
medical scholars now hypothesize was probably
colitis. And he also endured four distinct attacks
of facial paralysis. Which must have been terrifying.
He feared it was a nervous disorder that was
leading to madness, though it was likely caused
by a middle ear inflammation. But living with
those chronic unexplained physical ailments must
have added another layer of anxiety to his already
precarious existence as a struggling writer.
It certainly seemed to contribute to a sense
of internal conflict. His physical struggles
also paralleled his political ones. Yes. When
he was required to enlist in the military in
1851, he expressed these strong, articulate anti
-war sentiments. He wrote that to perform military
duties, you have to abandon all dignity. And
that principled anti -militarism remained a constant
theme in his work, didn't it? It did, sometimes
even leading to conflict with his more conservative
father. So he has rejected the law. He suffered
this profound romantic wound. And he's trying
to survive as a writer in Paris with no family
support. How does he bridge that gap between
his literary aspirations and the simple need
for a stable income? He finds a solution through
marriage and finance. He marries Honorine and
Hebe Moral in 1857, who was a widow and already
had two children, which offered him some stability.
And then critically, he gets a job. He does.
To secure the kind of steady income that would
allow him to write freely, he finally leaves
the unstable world of theater and takes a full
-time job as an agent de change, which is essentially
a stockbroker on the Paris Bourse. A stockbroker.
That seems like the ultimate anti -Vern job.
It does, doesn't it? The world of numbers. risk,
and bourgeois finance, clashing with these dreams
of global escape. But that tension is key. The
bourse job was a compromise, a necessary sacrifice.
But this is where the meticulous researcher we
all know truly took shape. Because he had to
be so disciplined. Incredibly. He had to wake
up extremely early each morning to write before
the bourse opened. But during his off hours,
he wasn't socializing. He was just relentlessly
accumulating knowledge. Let's talk about his
research system. Because this is what separates
him from most other writers of his time. He effectively
created his own private library and database.
He spent vast amounts of time at the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France taking copious, organized
notes from every book, newspaper, magazine, or
scientific report he could get his hands on.
And maintained this gigantic personal system
of note cards. Cross -referenced by geography,
geology, astronomy, technology. He kept his system
for the rest of his life. He was a professional
writer working in secret, building the factual
reservoir that would eventually fuel his voyages.
He wasn't inventing. He was curating. Precise.
And this diligence and just the sheer volume
of his notes brings us directly to the single
most important, and I think you could say fraught,
collaboration of his entire career. His publisher.
The relationship that would make him world famous,
but also change his artistic identity, his partnership
with peer Jules Hetzel. That meeting in 1862
was a true pivot point in literary history. Verne
came to Hetzel, who was already one of France's
most influential publishers. He'd worked with
literary heavyweights like Victor Hugo, Honoré
de Balzac, George Sand. Exactly. And Verne presented
him with a manuscript that was then titled Voyage
en Ballon. And Hetzel wasn't just looking for
adventure fiction. He had a very specific, ambitious
commercial and moral purpose in mind. Absolutely.
Hetzel was just about to launch his high -quality
family magazine, the magazine Education and Recreation.
the magazine of education and recreation. And
this was aimed at a very specific audience. High
-minded, progressive bourgeois families. It needed
content that was rigorously entertaining and
instructive. It was designed to educate French
youth in geography and modern science while upholding
very strict moral standards. And Verne's manuscript,
which later became Five Weeks in a Balloon, fit
that mandate perfectly. It was scientifically
researched, exciting, and morally clean. Hetzel
accepted the novel, but only after requiring
revisions to make it less dryly scientific. He
wanted more action. It was published in 1863,
and it launched Verne's career. But the real
game changer was the long -term contract Verne
signed. Yes. Tell us about the specifics of that
contract, because it gave him financial security,
but at what cost to his artistic freedom? Well,
Verne agreed to provide three volumes of text
per year for a flat annual fee. Crucially, this
was a steady salary, not a royalty per book sale.
So he could finally leave the stock market. He
could leave the insecurity of the bourse and
live solely on his writing. It guaranteed him
an audience and financial freedom, but it also
placed him firmly under Hetzel's editorial control
for decades. And this collaboration quickly turned
into a literary mandate, officially launching
the series Voyages Extraordinaire, the extraordinary
voyages with the publication of The Adventures
of Captain Hatteras in 1866. And Hetzel's vision
for this series was, frankly, encyclopedic. He
explicitly stated this ambitious goal. The series
was to outline all the geographical, geological,
physical, and astronomical knowledge amassed
by modern science. And to recount in an entertaining
and picturesque format that is his own, the history
of the universe. I mean, that is almost arrogant
in its scope, the history of the universe. And
Verne later confirmed that this ambition to depict
the entire Earth, and not just the Earth but
the universe, was his running theme. He recognized
the ambition, though, noting that to leave a
completed work behind, one would need to live
to be at least 100 years old. But here is the
critical point that mandate demanded optimism,
educational rigor and commercial viability. And
that commercial structure led directly to major
artistic conflicts because Verne's natural inclinations
were often darker, more pessimistic and politically
sharper than Hetzel's family audience could bear.
Let's focus on those three critical moments of
conflict because they tell us everything about
the tension between the artist and the publisher.
First, the editorial interference on Captain
Hatteras. Right. In the original manuscript,
Verne wrote a truly tragic, heroic ending for
Captain Hatteras. He sacrifices himself in the
Arctic wilderness. And Hetzel wouldn't have it.
He absolutely refused. He demanded that Verne
rewrite the climax, insisting that the protagonist
must survive. So Verne had to change the entire
artistic trajectory of the novel just to satisfy
the commercial need for a less depressing ending.
Yes, Hatteras survived. But he went mad. He was
left babbling incoherently and always pointing
north, forever searching for the pole he found.
It was a compromise that allowed for survival
while retaining a sliver of that tragic weight.
But it was still a major concession to the mandated
optimism of the voyage's extraordinaires. Okay,
the second conflict is even more famous because
it involves a book that was almost entirely suppressed,
Paris, in the 20th century. Vern wrote this manuscript
in 1863, very early in his career, and it was
a complete departure from the educational adventure
model he was developing. It was a dystopian future,
a satire set in the year 1960. And in it, he
envisioned a world dominated by giant glass skyscrapers,
vast impersonal financial institutions, and a
complete absence of meaningful art or culture.
It was a full -throated condemnation of the machine
age and a highly pessimistic view of technological
progress, a view that was completely contradictory
to the image Hetzel was trying to cultivate for
him. So Hetzel rejected the manuscript outright.
He found it too subversive and far too negative
for a family magazine focused on education and
recreation. He even reportedly advised Verne.
Stick to your wonderful geographical stories.
You are not ready for this subject. And that
manuscript was literally lost to history until
it was published posthumously in 1994. And it
changed scholarly perception overnight. It proved
that Verne was grappling with genuinely dark.
complex and literary ideas about modernity, but
he was forced to shelve them to keep his publishing
contract. It's a staggering price to pay for
security. It is. But the third and perhaps most
emotionally taxing conflict was the battle over
Captain Nemo in 20 ,000 Leagues Under the Seas
in 1869. Nemo is one of literature's most iconic
antiheroes, a man driven by intellectual brilliance
and just this profound vengeance. But Vern's
original conception was deeply political and
very specific. Nemo was a Polish scientist whose
family was brutally murdered by Russian forces
during the suppression of the 1863 -1864 January
uprising in Poland. So his vengeance was directed
specifically against the Russian Empire. A deeply
political, anti -colonial figure, a rebel against
European power structures. But as you can guess,
Russia was a crucial, lucrative market for Hetzel's
books. Right. He couldn't afford to alienate
them. Exactly. Hetzel feared alienating the powerful
Russian market. The publisher insisted that Nemo's
enemy be generalized or redirected. And Verne
fought this vehemently, seeing it as an artistic
and moral betrayal of his character's motivation.
So what was the compromise they finally reached?
Verne finally compromised by making Nemo's past
mysterious. He redirected his vengeance to be
vaguely against the oppressors of the world and
specifically introduced a subplot that tied Nemo
to the fight against the slave trade. So while
the final work is still incredibly powerful,
that profound... personal anti -colonial rage
that originally fueled Nemo was diluted. It was.
And this entire pattern, the survival of Hatteras,
the suppression of Paris in the 20th century,
the neutering of Nemo's politics, it demonstrates
how the security of the Hetzel contract came
at the cost of Verne's freedom to be a darker,
more critical, and fundamentally more literary
artist. And yet, despite those creative compromises,
the collaboration led to massive financial success.
It enabled Verne to achieve the kind of bourgeois
respectability he had once been denied. The real
wealth, though, didn't just come from book sales,
which were substantial. It came largely from
the enormously successful stage adaptations of
his works. Around the World in 80 Days in 1874
and Michael Strogoff in 1876 were just smash
hits on the Parisian stage. They became cultural
phenomena that cemented his fame and earned him
a substantial income from theatrical rights.
And that financial freedom allowed him to indulge
his lifelong love of the sea, transforming his
life from an armchair researcher into a genuine,
though I'd say cautious, traveler. He purchased
three successive boats, all named Somerset. And
actually sailed them around Europe. It's important
to note, though, that these voyages were not
just vacations. They were extended research trips.
Oh, absolutely. He meticulously documented the
coastlines, the weather, the ports he visited,
and was continually feeding his notecard system
with fresh, firsthand data. He used these trips
to gather the precise details that gave his novels
their authenticity. Personal tragedy did strike,
however, in 1886. A very difficult year for him.
On March 9th, Verne was shot twice in the leg
by his nephew Gaston, who was suffering from
mental illness and spent the rest of his life
in an asylum. And the bullet caused... a permanent
limp, a physical reminder of the dark side of
his family life. And in that same year, 1886,
Hetzel died. It's a remarkable confluence of
events. It is. And after the death of his demanding,
commercially -focused publisher, and after his
own personal trauma, scholars note that Verne's
works became noticeably darker and more cynical.
He shifted his focus somewhat, moving more fully
into public life. He was elected town councillor
of Amiens in 1888. And he served there for 15
years, championing public libraries and civic
improvements. He died on March 24, 1905, in Amiens,
suffering from chronic diabetes. and complications
from a stroke. His son, Michel Verne, then took
over the management of his literary estate, overseeing
the publication of the final manuscripts. And
here is the kicker that adds yet another layer
of editorial complexity and revisionism to his
story. Go on. It was later discovered that Michel
Verne had made extensive changes, often rewriting
his father's final, darker works, including The
Lighthouse at the End of the World and The Golden
Volcano, before they were published in the Voyage's
Extraordinaire series. So even after his death...
The real Verne was being masked by editorial
interference, trying to maintain that established
tone of optimism and adventure that Hetzel had
defined. Exactly. The original unedited versions
of these later works only finally saw publication
toward the end of the 20th century, revealing
the extent of the tragedy. So the man we thought
we knew was a diligent researcher constantly
battling commercial mandates, a political voice
silenced by market fears, and an author edited
by both his publisher and his own son. And that
context fundamentally changes how we view the
next crucial section, the powerful myth that
he was primarily a technological prophet. It
is the single most common label attached to him,
the father of science fiction. Yet your source
material shows that Verne himself vehemently
rejected this title and the whole notion that
he was predicting the future. He flatly stated,
I have invented nothing. He saw himself not as
a technician or futurist, but as a literary artist.
So his actual goal was not to forecast technology.
No, it was to depict the earth and, vitally,
to achieve a very high ideal of beauty of style.
He wanted to be judged alongside Balzac and Hugo,
not simply as a novelty writer of gadgets. This
is a crucial distinction that most English -speaking
readers entirely miss. If he wasn't trying to
invent, then what was the role of science and
technology in his books? For Verne, science was
simply a vehicle. It was a narrative necessity,
not the destination or the core intellectual
focus of the story. He explained this himself
using the perfect example of his first novel,
Five Weeks in a Balloon. Right. He clarified
that he wrote the book not as a story about ballooning,
but as a story about Africa. Precisely. His goal
was to provide a romantic, factual, and geographical
description of the African continent at a time
when much of it was still being charted. But,
as he said, there was no means of taking my travelers
through Africa otherwise than in a balloon. And
that is why a balloon is introduced. He even
admitted he had no faith in the possibility of
ever steering balloons at the time he wrote the
novel. He did. That shifts the paradigm entirely.
The submarine, the moon cannon, the drilling
apparatus, they are narrative solutions. They're
structural devices that allow his characters
to reach the remote research corners of the world
he wanted to describe. The science merely serves
the geography and the psychological adventure.
And yet the myth persists that he was this genius
prophet who foresaw everything from the lunar
module to the electric submarine. And the scholarly
consensus suggests this enduring claim is heavily
exaggerated, driven by something less tangible
than actual truth. What's the evidence for that
exaggeration? I found Theodore L. Thomas's observation
from 1961. Really fascinating here. Thomas observed
that Verne's profound storytelling skill, coupled
with readers' faulty memories of books they often
first encountered as children, causes people
to remember things from it that are not there.
So we fill in the blanks. We do. The impression
of valid scientific prediction, Thomas notes,
seems to grow as the years roll by. That is a
startling thought. The prophecy isn't inherent
in the text. It's manufactured by our own nostalgia
and post hoc rationalization. We see the invention
today, and we just assume Vern must have written
it exactly as it is now. A perfect example is
From the Earth to the Moon. Readers remember
the precise calculations in the Florida launch
site. But what they forget is that Vern's capsule
was soft -cushioned and launched from a giant
cannon, an idea that scientifically would have
instantly killed the occupants due to the G -forces.
So it's the accurate geographical research that
sticks in our minds while the impossible mechanics
are forgotten. So if the accuracy wasn't prophecy,
how do we explain his indisputable command of
detail regarding, say, the pressure resistance
of a submarine hull, or the dimensions required
for a long -distance cannon? Verne himself always
attributed any connection between scientific
developments and his work to mere coincidence.
He didn't have a crystal ball. He had that meticulously
organized filing cabinet filled with notes. It
all comes back to the research. It does. His
accuracy was the direct result of his relentless,
almost manic research. He said he always took
numerous notes out of every book, newspaper,
magazine, or scientific report that I came across.
He was extrapolating based on the best current
data available, not inventing new laws of physics.
That makes him less of a futuristic prophet and
more of a masterful cartographer of existing
knowledge. It's the difference between extrapolation
based on cutting -edge data and genuine speculative
invention. It's the difference between Jules
Byrne and H .G. Wells, who really did delve into
the sociological implications of impossible technology.
And this complexity led to huge ambiguity in
how critics categorized him. The French writer
Maurice Renard claimed Verne never wrote a single
sentence of Scientific Marvelous, which highlights
the difficult relationship between the voyage's
extraordinaires and what later became defined
as Anglo -American science fiction. For French
critics, his work was too grounded in reality
to be simple genre fiction. And that struggle
over genre and intent leads directly to the tragedy
of his literary reputation. This is maybe the
most acute point of this deep dive. the tale
of two completely different literary reputations
on either side of the channel. In France, the
trajectory was initially one of great promise
and admiration. Early in his career, he was enthusiastically
received and celebrated by major literary figures.
People like George Sand. George Sand, one of
the most prominent writers of the time, wrote
effusively about his work, and Théophile Gautier
praised his style. So why did he end up feeling
like an outsider who never took any place in
French literature? Because of his massive, overwhelming
popular success, especially with the stage adaptations.
When Around the World in 80 Days became a global
theatrical phenomenon, Rowan was suddenly viewed
by the literary elite as too commercial, too
popular. And too focused on entertainment rather
than high art. It's the classic snobbery trap.
Once you become a mass success, you are dismissed
as a commodity. And contemporary critics, like
Emil Zola, started to dismiss him as merely a
genre -based storyteller, unfit for serious academic
study or nomination for the prestigious Académie
Française. They saw the technological apparatus
as childish, completely missing the rich geographic
and stylistic detail that was really at the core
of his work. And this critical dismissal. based
purely on literary ideology and his market penetration,
was felt so acutely by Verne himself. And that
is the source of his profound lament about never
taking any place in French literature. He craved
the recognition of his peers as a stylist. For
decades after his death, this academic snub persisted.
But in the 1960s and 70s, something shifted.
A massive French rehabilitation began. A Jules
Verne cult developed among scholars and young
writers who started taking his work seriously
as literature, not just as adventure stories.
And it was literary heavyweights who forced the
change. Roland Barthez, the great French literary
theorist, wrote the seminal essay Nautilus de
Bateau -Ivre. Nautilus and the Drunken Boat.
Right. And Bartha's essay was pivotal because
it treated the voyage's extraordinaires as a
purely literary text. Bartha's analyzed Verne's
use of language, his symbolism, his narrative
structures. Treating the mechanisms like the
Nautilus, not as technical blueprints, but as
profound psychological metaphors. Yes, metaphors
for enclosure, solitude, and exploration. This
forced the critics to analyze his style and themes
rather than just his technological gadgetry.
And the final validation, the ultimate sign that
he was now officially recognized as high art,
came in 1978. That's when Journey to the Center
of the Earth was accepted for the French university
system's aggregation reading list. Now, for listeners
unfamiliar, the aggregation is a highly competitive
national examination required to certify secondary
school teachers. And its reading list is reserved
for works considered essential to French literary
and cultural heritage. Verne's inclusion meant
he was now mandatory study, confirming his status
as an unquestioned member of the French literary
canon. OK, now contrast that powerful trajectory
with his reputation in the English speaking world.
which, as the source notes, was considerably
slower in changing. Often dismissing him as a
writer for children or a naive proponent of science.
And the tragedy here is entirely commercial and
translational? It is. British and American publishers
in the 19th and early 20th centuries made a conscious
decision to market his books almost exclusively
to young audiences. This commercial choice cemented
his long -term reputation as merely a children's
author, preventing adult readers and serious
critics from engaging with his work. But the
real sin was the quality deficit. The early English
translations are universally criticized for being
not just poor, but fundamentally altered, abridged,
and just full of errors. So readers in the Anglophone
world weren't actually reading Verne. They were
reading highly commercialized, simplified adaptations.
And the quotes from contemporary writers who
later discovered the original French are just.
They're damning. The British writer Adam Roberts
noted the bizarre situation that he realized
he hadn't been reading Jules Verne at all for
decades, but rather these simplified English
versions. And Michael Crichton, the American
novelist, was particularly scathing. He described
the published English prose as clunky, choppy,
tone deaf. Crichton specifically investigated
the notorious 1872 translation of Journey to
the Center of the Earth by a publisher called
Griffith and Farron. And what he found was just
shocking. Crichton noted that the translators
blithely altered the text, giving Verne's characters
new names and adding whole pages of their own
invention, thus effectively obliterating the
meaning and tone of Verne's original. They didn't
just shorten books. They actively injected new,
incorrect scientific data. And critically, they
removed the detailed geographical and technical
descriptions that Verne had so meticulously researched.
Think about that magnitude of editorial vandalism.
That's incredible. Whole pages of invented material,
crucial passages of scientific exposition removed,
character names changed, and his political critiques,
like those we discussed with Nemo, often sanitized
completely. This just provided English -speaking
readers with a cheap, simplistic version, missing
the very literary and scientific depth that earned
him his admiration in France. And the most unfortunate
reality is that while far more accurate English
translations have appeared since 1965, those
older, deficient public domain versions are continually
republished and distributed freely, especially
online. So it just prolongs the misunderstanding
from millions of new readers, creating a permanent
barrier to the real Verne. Despite the persistent
critical misrepresentation, especially in the
English world, his influence has been massive
and widespread. On the literary side, he influenced
heavy hitters like Roland Barthes, Jean -Paul
Sartre, Julio Cortázar. And the author of The
Little Prince, Antoine de Saint -Exupéry. And
the scientific community has been equally inspired.
Explorers and scientists who acknowledge Verne's
profound inspiration include the first man in
space, Yuri Gagarin. the rocket scientist Wernher
von Braun, the Soviet rocketry pioneer Konstantin
Tsiolkovsky, and the controversial American rocket
engineer Jack Parsons. He also essentially helped
inspire the entire steampunk genre, which glamorizes
science fiction based on 19th century technology.
The ultimate summary of his legacy, simplified
or not, really comes from Ray Bradbury, who said,
We are all, in one way or another, the children
of Jules Verne. We've spent this deep dive uncovering
the profound layers of Jules Verne, moving far
past that simple label of a prophet of technology.
We've seen him as the deeply emotional man marked
by lost love, the victim of the Hermione complex.
We've seen him as the diligent researcher, meticulously
filling his note cards with facts that gave his
fiction an unparalleled realism. He was the anti
-war voice and the literary artist who valued
style. constantly battling a powerful publisher,
Hetzel, whose commercial mandate demanded that
Verne's complex, sometimes pessimistic, work
be simplified, sanitized, and made palatable
for a family audience. And we have seen how those
commercial interests led to the profound, tragic
betrayal of his work in English translation.
And the relevance for you, the listener, is clear.
Verne's visionary work didn't spring from some
mystical ability to see the future. No, it came
from an informed, meticulous exploration of existing
scientific knowledge, combined with a profound
psychological understanding of what motivates
humanity escape, vengeance, and the desire for
justice. True visionary work often stems from
relentless, informed research, not just prophecy.
We discussed how Wundt lamented that to finish
his project, he would have needed to live to
be 100 years old. And we also discussed how his
son Michel altered some of his final, darker
manuscripts. And we know that the original, highly
pessimistic manuscript of Paris in the 20th century,
written in 1863, was suppressed for decades and
only found and published in 1994. So this raises
one final provocative thought for you to mull
over. Considering the decades of rigid editorial
control he faced, both from Hetzel and his own
son, and the dark nature of the original works
that have been recovered, what other lost, darker,
or more literary manuscripts of the real Jules
Verne might still be hidden in some dusty archive
waiting to fundamentally change our understanding
of this world -spanning imagination?