One of the greatest adventure writers of all time was the Frenchman, Jules Verne. According to his publisher, Pierre Jules-Hetzel, Verne wanted to “outline all the geographical, geological, physical and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science.” Modern science, for him, meant 19th century information.
Verne published a science fiction story about space flight in 1865. It was called
From the Earth to the Moon. He included an illustration of his fictional travelers experiencing
weightlessness. His original books, which often included as many as 60 illustrations, were awe-inspiring to people who had never heard of air flight,
space travel,
journeys to the center of the earth or to the
bottom of the sea. At least one of the illustrations (from
Autour de la lune which, in English, means "Round the Moon") was amazingly
prophetic (see
Chapter XXII) when
Apollo 8's Frank
Borman actually
splashed down in the Pacific
Ocean just a few miles away from the point mentioned in the book.
When he wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Verne introduced the world to Captain Nemo and to a fantastic underwater vessel he named the Nautilus. The original illustrations of Nemo (which, in Latin, means “no one”) were based on Colonel Charras (historian of the 1815 battle of
Waterloo who was, in real life, exiled in 1852). Scholars believe that Nemo’s life, however, was based (at least in part) on the freedom
fighter Gustave Flourens.
Verne (who had a
beautiful home, with a courtyard, in Amiens - a northern French town famous for its 13th century Cathedral of
Notre Dame), was extraordinarily prolific. Because he (1828-
1905) and his wife Honorine lived to old age, Verne left many fantastic stories which are still enjoyed by people throughout the world.
Fifty years after the death of this visionary, the United States launched its first nuclear submarine. It was called Nautilus, after Captain Nemo’s squid-fighting vessel of the same name.
As The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen combined fictional American and British characters to fight a common enemy, what was 19th century life like in those countries? And how did the two nations - who had fought each other at the beginning of the century - get along at the end?