Novel
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
Vingt mille lieues sous les mers
Jules Verne · 1870
Synopsis
In 1866, an unknown sea monster attacks ships. Professor Pierre Aronnax of the Muséum d'histoire naturelle in Paris, his servant Conseil and the Canadian harpooner Ned Land board the American frigate Abraham-Lincoln to hunt it down. Following an accident, they find themselves aboard the so-called monster: it is a submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo, who keeps them prisoner and takes them on a long voyage beneath the seas of the globe.
Context
The novel first appeared in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's Magasin d'éducation et de récréation, from March 1869 to June 1870, then in volumes; the illustrated edition of 1871 has about a hundred engravings after Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. Verne wanted to make Nemo a Pole fighting Russian oppression; Hetzel opposed this, and the captain's reasons remained unspoken. Verne was then writing to his publisher that he was working “avec rage” on what he considered his finest subject.
Who it is for
A long adventure novel, rich in scientific descriptions and in inventories of marine fauna; an illustrated edition makes it more lively to read.
Prizes and reception
Adapted for the screen many times; William Butcher produced an annotated English translation for Oxford World's Classics.
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