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      In 1867 Jules Verne who adored the sea and travelled, did with his brother, a marine officer, a magnificent crossing from Liverpool to New-York and return on board of the most famous steamer of the time : The Great Eastern. He will describe this ship in his novel A floating town. After the 1870 war, the Verne settle in Amiens where they let, some years later, the beautiful residence of the Rue Charles Dubois, in which the novelist wrote a lot of books. Articles, which appeared on the press between 1869 and 1870 showed that, thanks to the Suez Canal and the Mont Cenis tunnel, The trip around the world could be done in less than three months. While reading these articles, Jules Verne imagined The adventures of Phileas Fogg and his servant Passepartout, around the globe. The tour of the world in eighty days was published in serials in 1872 and became the greatest success of the author. Then were published The mysterious Island, Michel Strogoff, Hector Servadac and A fifteen-year-old Captain. Meanwhile, Jules Verne came back to the theatre to adapt three of his novels in collaboration with Adolph d’Ennery : The tower of the world in eighty days, Children of Captain Grant and Michel Strogoff. The success of his plays was immense and brought more money to the Authors. After 1880, “that’s Strogoff” became synonymous it seems with “that’s extraordinary” ! Between 1868 and 1885 Jules Verne had three ships, the Saint-Michel I, II, III. The latter was a real steam-powered yacht, which allowed him to make beautiful cruises. The most famous was the one of 1884 in the Mediterranean : the writer was looking for his inspiration for the novel Mathias Sandorf and was almost shipwrecked in sight of Malta. Jules Verne devoted a great part of his time to reading books, reviews and newspapers, which were above all Scientific. Author of a France Geography and its colonies from 1868, he also wrote between 1870 and 1880, an History of Great Trips and Great Travellers as the demand of Hetzel, who wanted to prove that his novels are based on rigorous data. The publishing of Extraordinary Trips is made at a regular pace : Les cinq cents millions de la Bégum, Les tribulations d’un chinois en Chine, La maison à vapeur, La Jangada, Kéraban-le-têtu. The Jules Verne’s works were translated in all languages, from English to Italian, from Portuguese to German, from Hungarian to Greek, from Spanish to Danish, from Russian to Arabic. On March 9th 1886, Gaston Verne, the writer’s nephew, in a fit of madness shot two times on his uncle, apparently without reason. Hurt on the leg, Jules Verne limped all along the end of his life. Some days after, occured the death of Pierre Jules Hetzel whose critisms had played an important role in the writing of Extraordinary Trips. It was his son Louis-Jules (known as Jules) who took his succession and published Jules Verne’s works until the cession of his house to the publisher of Hachette, in 1914. In 1986 an important novel by Jules Verne, Robur le conquérant, devoted to the theme “more heavy than the air” was published. Robur was the inventor of a sort of helicopter, the Albatros. In 1904, Verne had published the rest of his novel with the title Master of the world. In 1888 Jules Verne was almost never went to Paris and maintained epistolary relations with his Publisher he was elected at the municipal council of Amiens. He was interested above all in theatres and fairgrounds and took his functions seriously. In 1889 opened the town circus, the building of which he had pleaded for. Drawing from a circus actor who was called Cascabel he wrote a novel about that justly entitled Cesar Cascabel. . . . I . . . Precedent I Continuation . . . I High of page I |
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