Trend ♦ Influence ♦ Inspiration ♦ Adaptations
♦ Cinema ♦ Television ♦ SteampunkJules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905),
an enormously popular French writer, is the second most translated person in the world with > 145 languages (according to UNESCO Index
Translationum, Wikipedia List of Most Translated Individual Authors, ISFDB Jules Verne
Translations, Garmt's Jules Verne Pages, and Optilingua The most translated books in the world), one of the most widely read
authors, and one of the most influential novelists of all time.
Creator of the geographic and scientific novel genres, he is also acknowledged as the founding father of modern science fiction.
He was born, lived most of his life and died in the French seaport of Nantes, in Bretagne, upriver from the Bay of Biscay.
In 1851 he graduated from the Faculty of Law in Paris, France, but never
practiced.
For a short while he made a living as a playwright (wrote several plays), operetta lyricist, and then briefly as a stockbroker. Meanwhile he also published short stories and scientific essays.
His literary influence stemmed mainly
from Alexandre Dumas, James Fenimore Cooper, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Victor Hugo, Daniel Defoe.
In 1857 he decided to draw upon his keen interest in natural sciences, technology, history and geography, and
started to study and research geology, engineering and astronomy at the National Library. After accumulating scientific and technological knowledge he began writing a
series of 68 novels of Extraordinary Voyages ♦ Voyages Extraordinaires written in form of travel and adventure books, in which he anticipated with remarkable foresight many scientific and
technological achievements of the 20th century, while catching the enterprising spirit of the 19th century, and its uncritical fascination with scientific progress, inventivity and innovation.
He predicted modern space, air and underwater travel
(long before space rockets, navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented), and also the videophone, the tank, the artificial satellite, the skyscraper, and other modern technological marvels, while inspiring
some of the world's foremost scientists, explorers, inventors, literary authors, and visual arts writers and directors.
The manuscript of his 1860 novel, "Paris in The Twentieth Century" ♦ "Paris au XXe Siècle" (found and published in 1994) paints a grim,
dystopian view of a technologically advanced but culturally backwards futuristic civilization a century into his future (1960), which describes with accuracy and detail internal combustion engine powered cars, an underground passenger train system
(metro, subway), high speed trains (bullet trains) powered by magnetism (maglev) and compressed air (vactrain), skyscrapers, electric street lights, fax machines, electric elevators, sophisticated electrically powered mechanical calculators (computers)
capable of sending information among themselves across vast distances (the internet), wind power generated electricity (wind turbines), automated security systems (cybersecurity), the electric chair, remotely operated weapons (guided missiles), weapons
of mass destruction (atomic, nuclear bombs), suburban growth, mass produced higher education (online courses, classes, degrees), 20th century music, rise of electronic music, the synthesizer (electronic keyboards), recorded music industry.
Besides
futuristic vision and scientific detail, his work depicts tension, adventure, action, and humor.
Most of Jules Verne's books have been translated into all European languages, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Hindi among others, and continue to be the
inspiration for countless theatre performances, motion pictures, television shows, documentaries, animated, anime films and programs.To quote Ray Bradbury
(1920-2012): "...we are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne."
L. Sprague de Camp (1907-2000) called Jules Verne
"the world's first full-time science fiction novelist."Jules Verne's most famous novels: |
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