Jules Verne imagined the future long before technology caught up with his dreams. While other writers of his time focused on the past, he looked forward to submarines, space travel, and skyscrapers. He combined rigorous research with boundless imagination to create the genre of "extraordinary voyages." Furthermore, his work inspired real-life inventors and explorers to turn his fiction into reality. Prepare to travel around the world with the French literary genius.
Jules Verne
His mentally ill nephew shot him in the leg. Gaston Verne fired two shots at the writer in 1886, striking him in the left shin. Jules Verne refused to press charges against his family member, but the wound left him with a limp for the rest of his life.
He predicted the details of the Apollo moon landing with eerie accuracy. In his novel From the Earth to the Moon, he described a spacecraft launching from Florida, carrying three astronauts, and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. He wrote this over a century before NASA actually did it.
His great-grandson discovered a lost novel in a dusty safe. Verne wrote Paris in the Twentieth Century in 1863, but his publisher rejected it for being too pessimistic. The manuscript sat forgotten until 1989, revealing predictions about gas-powered cars, skyscrapers, and a global communications network similar to the internet.
Legends say he tried to run away as a cabin boy at age eleven. The story claims he wanted to sail to the Indies to bring back a coral necklace for his cousin. However, his father caught him before the ship left the harbor and made him promise to travel only in his imagination.
He is the second most translated author in the world. Only Agatha Christie ranks higher than him on the global translation index. His works appeal to readers across all cultures, surpassing even Shakespeare in total number of translations.
Nellie Bly beat his fictional record in real life. The investigative journalist decided to race Phileas Fogg’s time of eighty days. She traveled around the world in just seventy-two days and even stopped in France to meet Verne, who cheered her on.
He worked as a stockbroker before finding success as a writer. Although he hated the job, he needed the income to support his family while he wrote plays and stories in the early morning hours. He finally quit the financial world after his first novel became a bestseller.
The United States Navy named their first nuclear submarine after his fictional ship. Designer Hyman Rickover admired the author’s vision so much that he christened the vessel the USS Nautilus. This tribute honored the electric submarine Captain Nemo pilots in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
He described a weapon remarkably similar to the modern taser. In his stories, characters use devices that deliver a strong electric charge to stun enemies. Physics and law enforcement did not catch up to this concept for another hundred years.
His father wanted him to become a lawyer. Verne moved to Paris to study law but spent all his time writing poetry and visiting theaters. When his father found out, he cut off Jules’s money, forcing the young writer to survive on a meager income.
He rarely traveled later in life despite his adventurous books. He wrote most of his famous novels while sitting in his study in Amiens, surrounded by maps and encyclopedias. He preferred to let his research and imagination do the traveling for him.
The character of Phileas Fogg likely came from an eccentric American. George Francis Train, a wealthy entrepreneur, famously traveled around the world in eighty days in 1870. His energetic and erratic personality provided the template for Verne’s punctual protagonist.
Critics initially dismissed his work as merely books for children. For a long time, the literary establishment in France refused to take him seriously as an artist. However, modern scholars now recognize him as a surrealist visionary and a master of the French language.
Jules Verne suffered from facial paralysis known as Bell’s Palsy. He experienced several attacks throughout his life, which caused one side of his face to droop. He often attributed these health issues to the stress and intensity of his work schedule.
Finally, a crater on the far side of the Moon bears his name. To honor his vision of space travel, astronomers named a large impact crater “Jules Verne.” It sits adjacent to the Mare Ingenii, the “Sea of Cleverness,” fittingly commemorating his genius.
