Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Deathday: Jules Verne 1828-1905 RIP

 

Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French author who helped pioneer the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) and The Mysterious Island (1875). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the "Father of science fiction," along with H. G. Wells. Verne is the second most translated author of all time, only behind Agatha Christie, with 4223 translations, according to Index Translationum. Some of his works have been made into films.

 

In 1864, Verne wrote an admiring study of the works of Edgar Allan Poe (Edgar Poe et ses oeuvres, 1864) and it is not difficult to see Poe's works, published in France as Histoires extraordinaires (Extraordinary Stories), as a source of inspiration for Verne. In fact, Verne was so intrigued by Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" that he penned a sequel to the work entitled "An Antarctic Mystery." Verne set his story eleven years after the disappearance of Pym and recounts through the persona of Jeorling, a man of science, the adventures encountered during an expedition tracing Pym's travels.

 

In 1905, ill with diabetes, Verne died at his home, 44 Boulevard Longueville (now Boulevard Jules-Verne) on 24 March 1905 and was buried in the Madeleine Cemetery in Amiens.

 

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