Jules Verne

In this chief of his works, Jules Verne has set himself to tell the story of all the most stirring adventures of which we have any written record - to give the history, 'from the time of Hanno and Herodotus down to that of Livingstone and Stanley, ' of those voyages of exploration and discovery which are among the most thrilling episodes in the history of human enterprise. In short, Jules Verne has chosen for his most important book the only subject which he could make surpass his own vivid and realistic stories in absorbing interest; to the treatment of such material he brings all the dash and vivid picturesqueness of his own creations, and it may be imagined that he makes a book worth reading. The plan of the work is so valuable that it is a matter for surprise, that such a history has never been undertaken before. To trace connectedly the progress of discovery as Jules Verne does, from the time when the world was a very small circle indeed, surrounded by the densest of outer darkness, and when the Carthagenian navigators ventured timidly out of the Mediterranean - is to gain an altogether new idea of the daring and skill that has been expended in this one direction. It is a worthy subject for the most ambitious work of such a writer. Verne obtained all information for the book from the original documents

But strange as the journey may be, it's nowhere near as strange as what they will find waiting at its end. One of the lesser known novels by Jules Verne, but certainly a novel that is worth reading, An Antarctic Mystery or The Sphinx of the Ice Fields is a fictional travelogue that describes the narrator's adventures as he travels from Kerguelen Islands, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, towards the South Pole. The novel is the account of the journey made by Jeorling, a rich American who has been studying the wildlife on Kerguelen Islands and is now looking for a way to return to America. However, the journey cannot be that straight - the ship that Jeorling travels by meets an iceberg with a dead body on it and they find a note indicating that some of the crew of the Jane, Pym's ship might still be alive, so Jeorling and the crew of his ship go to find out if that is true. The journey is, of course, full of adventures and mysteries, some of which get solved by the end of the book, while others remain mysteries for good, to be solved by the reader's imagination. An Antarctic Mystery comes with all features that make Verne so fascinating. The narrative is as detailed as any of the more famous Verne novels, it unfolds in the typical rhythm and there are just as many detailed and scientific descriptions. The book leaves a lot to the reader's fantasy, too - written in an age when not much was known about the South Pole and many scientists still believed in the existence of an open sea beyond the ice barrier, this unknown territory makes the perfect setting for a fictional travel book.

Phileas Fogg, brittisk gentleman och medlem av Reformklubben, slår vad om att han kan resa jorden runt på åttio dagar. Med sig tar han sin franske betjänt, Jean Passepartout. De många oförutsedda saker - och faror - de möter på vägen beror på fransmannens nyfikenhet och äventyrslust. Samtidigt misstänks Fogg för att ha rånat Bank of England på en jättesumma för resan, och de jagas hack i häl av den engelske detektiven Fix. Till sist är det fransmannen som kommer på hur de ska överlista alla. Jorden runt på 80 dagar [Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, 1873] innehåller allt det bästa från tidig science-fiction-litteratur, samtidigt som romanen har sitt hjärta i resan och äventyret. Jules Vernes fiktioner utgör en brygga mellan 1800- och 1900-tal, och denna roman betraktas allmänt som hans viktigaste. En världslitteraturklassiker i svensk översättning av Jakob Gunnarsson. JULES VERNE [1828-1905] var en fransk författare av allt från äventyrsromaner och science fiction till dramatik och libretton, med en produktion av minst två handskrivna romaner om året. Även om han i dag förknippas med populär- och ungdomslitteratur har han alltid prisats av både kritiker och många stora författare. Hans klassiska verk är Jorden runt på 80 dagar, En världsomsegling under havet, En resa till jordens medelpunkt och Från jorden till månen.

Voil ce que l'on avait pu lire dans le Liverpool Herald du 5 avril 1860. Le d part d'un brick est un v nement de peu d'importance pour le port le plus commer ant de l'Angleterre. Qui s'en apercevrait au milieu des navires de tout tonnage et de toute nationalit , que deux lieues de bassins flot ont de la peine contenir ? Cependant, le 6 avril, d s le matin, une foule consid rable couvrait les quais de New Princes Docks; l'innombrable corporation des marins de la ville semblait s'y tre donn rendez-vous. Les ouvriers des warfs environnants avaient abandonn leurs travaux, les n gociants leurs sombres comptoirs, les marchands leurs magasins d serts. Les omnibus multicolores, qui longent le mur ext rieur des bassins, d versaient chaque minute leur cargaison de curieux; la ville ne paraissait plus avoir qu'une seule pr occupation: assister au d part du Forward. Le Forward tait un brick de cent soixante-dix tonneaux, muni d'une h lice et d'une machine vapeur de la force de cent vingt chevaux. On l'e t volontiers confondu avec les autres bricks du port. Mais, s'il n'offrait rien d'extraordinaire aux yeux du public, les connaisseurs remarquaient en lui certaines particularit s auxquelles un marin ne pouvait se m prendre. Aussi, bord du Nautilus, ancr non loin, un groupe de matelots se livrait-il mille conjectures sur la destination du Forward. - Que penser, disait l'un, de cette m ture ? il n'est pas d'usage, pourtant, que les navires vapeur soient si largement voil s.