Jules Verne biography. 40 interesting facts about the brilliant French writer Jules Verne
2. In 1863, young Jules Verne brought the novel “Paris in the 20th Century” to one of the publishing houses, in which he predicted the invention of the fax and the electric chair.
4. Jules Verne never visited Russia, but, nevertheless, several of his novels take place in Russia (in whole or in part).
5. For a writer, Jules Verne had an incredible ability to work. He could sit at his desk at five o'clock in the morning and leave it at eight in the evening.
6. The works of Jules Verne have been translated into 148 languages, this was found out by the UNESCO Organization, which conducted statistics and it turned out that his books were printed all over the world in 148 languages.
7. Jules Verne was married to a widow. The writer fell in love and took a woman with two children, he even borrowed 50,000 francs from his father to support the family.
8. It is believed that Jules Verne wrote about exciting adventures without leaving his office. This is wrong. Of course, he was not destined to go on a flight around the Moon or a trip to the center of the Earth. But he traveled around the world a lot.
9. The writer traveled on three Saint-Michel yachts that he owned. He visited the Mediterranean countries, Great Britain, and the USA.
10. Jules Verne really wanted to visit Russia, but in 1881 a strong storm forced the yacht captain to abandon his course to St. Petersburg.
11.The brilliant Frenchman predicted flights into space and the passage of the Northern Sea Route during one navigation, the appearance of an airplane and a helicopter.
12. The legendary submarine Nautilus of Captain Nemo stands apart. Yes, by the time Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, submarines had already been invented. But even in the second decade of the 21st century, not a single submarine has the characteristics of the Nautilus!
13. At the age of eleven, Jules almost ran away to India, hiring himself as a cabin boy on the schooner Coralie, but was stopped in time. Already a famous writer, he admitted: “I must have been born a sailor, and now every day I regret that a maritime career did not fall to my lot since childhood.”
14. In Russia, the book “Five Weeks in a Balloon” appeared in the same year as the French edition, and the first review of the novel, written by Saltykov-Shchedrin, was published in Nekrasov’s Sovremennik.
15.American newspaper magnate Gordon Bennett asked Verne to write a story specifically for American readers - predicting the future of America. The request was fulfilled, but the story entitled “In the 29th century. One day of an American journalist in 2889” was never released in America.
16. Another list of predictions is related to a family myth. As if in 1863, Jules Verne wrote the novel “Paris in the 20th Century”, took it to the publisher, and after a while returned discouraged: the publisher, having read the manuscript, rejected it because it was too fantastic, and called the writer an idiot.
17.And in 1989, the great-grandson of Jules Verne discovered a forgotten manuscript in some safe. The list of inventions predicted by the writer is amazing: a car, a high-speed electric train, a skyscraper, a computer, a fax machine and even an electric chair!
18. Jules Verne signed his first contract with the publishing house in 1863. According to the terms of the contract, the writer had to prepare at least three works a year, for each of which he received 1,900 francs.
19. After 8 years, Verne’s income increased significantly - for each novel he received 6,000 francs.
20. The writer was inspired to write the novel “Around the World in Eighty Days” by a magazine article proving that if a traveler has good transportation, he can travel around the globe in eighty days. Verne also calculated that you could even win one day if you use the geographical paradox described by Edgar Allan Poe in the novel “Three Sundays in One Week.”
21. Many scientists and inventors admitted that in childhood they literally read the works of the French writer. As many designers of rockets and spaceships, and the first cosmonauts and astronauts later admitted, Jules Verne’s books were on their desks.
22. The prototype of Michel Ardant from the novel “From the Earth to the Moon” was a friend of Jules Verne - writer, artist and photographer Felix Tournachon, better known under the pseudonym Nadar.
23.The writer’s first work was the play “Broken Straws.” It was staged at the famous History Theater. However, Jules Verne soon realized that dramaturgy was not for him, it did not bring profit, and he abandoned this business.
24.The novels “Flight to the Moon” and “Around the Moon” raise the question in readers: “How did he know?!” Judge for yourself. Aluminum was widely used in the construction of the Columbiad and Apollo. The main module of Apollo 11 had its own name "Columbia". The crews included three astronauts. (Evaluate the consonance of surnames: Barbicane-Nicole-Ardant on the Columbiad and Borman-Lovell-Anders on Apollo 8!) The launch site is the Florida peninsula. Splashdown location: Pacific Ocean.
25. An excellent writer is considered the founder of science fiction; he wrote a lot of books on this topic.
26.The writer was a member of the Geographical Society of France. Since he traveled a lot, he was taken into this society.
27. In the Russian Empire, Jules Verne’s novel “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was banned for a long time. This was explained by the fact that anti-religious motives were clearly visible in the work.
28. In the Soviet Union, the writer’s works were incredibly popular.
29. Many readers treated the author’s predictions with distrust, assuring that “this cannot happen, because it can never happen.”
30. Contemporaries noted the writer’s incredible work capacity - he could be at his desk for 14-15 hours a day. This is not surprising: the writer’s novels were very popular, therefore, publishing houses often rushed the author.
31. In the original version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo was a Polish aristocrat who built the Nautilus to take revenge on the “damned Russian occupiers.” And only after the active intervention of the publisher Etzel, who sold books in Russia, Captain Nemo first became “homeless”, and in the novel “The Mysterious Island” he turned into Prince Dakkar - the son of an Indian Rajah, taking revenge on the British after the suppression of the sepoy uprising.
32. Almost all of the writer’s books contain predictions and discoveries. Everything fantastic that the writer wrote about in his books was later invented. When making discoveries, scientists even relied on his works and took ideas from him.
33.But Jules Verne also had gloomy forecasts. The novel “Five Hundred Million Begums” features a German professor, Schulze, who dreams of nationalist ideas and world domination. To do this, he creates a giant weapon that fires projectiles containing poisonous gas. The novel was completed in 1878. There were 37 years left before the first use of chemical warfare agents.
34. For his brilliant talent as a writer and popularizer of scientific achievements, grateful humanity immortalized Jules Verne by naming a large crater in the Sea of Dreams on the far side of the Moon after him.
35. And when the European Space Agency decided to make the ATV cargo ships sent to the International Space Station “named”, the very first one was named Jules Verne. He flew in 2008.
36.The late works of Jules Verne are imbued with fear of the use of science for criminal purposes. They never gained success with readers.
37. During the years of Soviet power, the total circulation of the author’s works exceeded 50,000,000 copies.
38. In the small Russian town of Kaluga, a modest teacher at the diocesan girls’ gymnasium, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, carefully re-read “From the Earth to the Moon,” making notes and calculations. And then, rejecting the idea of a manned cannon projectile, he writes: “A skyship must be like a rocket.” For nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.
39.Jules Verne died in 1905 from diabetes.
40. The writer went blind shortly before his death, but did not give up - he dictated his works to his assistants.
The future writer was born in 1828 on February 8 in Nantes. His father was a lawyer, and his mother, half-Scottish, received an excellent education and took care of the house. Jules was the first child, after him another boy and three girls were born in the family.
Study and writing debut
Jules Verne studied law in Paris, but at the same time was actively involved in writing. He wrote stories and librettos for Parisian theaters. Some of them were staged and even had success, but his real literary debut was the novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” which was written in 1864.
Family
The writer was married to Honorine de Vian, who by the time she met him was already a widow and had two children. They got married, and in 1861 they had a common son, Michel, a future cinematographer who filmed several of his father’s novels.
Popularity and travel
After his first novel was successful and favorably received by critics, the writer began to work hard and fruitfully (according to the recollections of his son Michel, Jules Verne spent most of his time at work: from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening).
It is interesting that since 1865, the cabin of the yacht “Saint-Michel” has become the writer’s study. This small ship was purchased by Jules Verne while working on the novel “The Children of Captain Grant.” Later, the yachts “San Michel II” and “San Michel III” were purchased, on which the writer sailed around the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. He visited the south and north of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway), and the north of the African continent (for example, Algeria). I dreamed of sailing to St. Petersburg. But this was prevented by a strong storm that broke out in the Baltic. He had to give up all travel in 1886 after being wounded in the leg.
Last years
The writer's latest novels differ from his first. They feel fear. The writer renounced the idea of the omnipotence of progress. He began to understand that many achievements of science and technology would be used for criminal purposes. It should be noted that the writer’s last novels were not popular.
The writer died in 1905 from diabetes. Until his death he continued to dictate books. Many of his novels, unpublished and unfinished during his lifetime, are published today.
Other biography options
- If you follow the brief biography of Jules Verne, it turns out that over the 78 years of his life he wrote about 150 works, including documentary and scientific works (only 66 novels, some of which are unfinished).
- The writer’s great-grandson, Jean Verne, a famous opera tenor, managed to find the novel “Paris of the 20th Century” (the novel was written in 1863 and published in 1994), which was considered a family legend and in the existence of which no one believed. It was in this novel that cars, the electric chair, and the fax were described.
- Jules Verne was a great soothsayer. He wrote in his novels about an airplane, a helicopter, video communications, television, about the Trans-Siberian Railway, about the Channel Tunnel, about space exploration (he almost exactly indicated the location of the cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral).
- The writer’s works have been filmed in different countries around the world, and the number of films based on his books has exceeded 200.
- The writer has never been to Russia, but in 9 of his novels the action takes place in the then Russian Empire.
Jules Verne is an internationally recognized classicist, writer and geographer.
Jules Verne, who is the recognized founder of science fiction, was born on February 8, 1828 in the family of a lawyer in the city of Nantes.
At the age of 20 he went to Paris to study at law college. A year later, he presented his first literary work to the discerning Parisian public.
The play was staged on the stage of the theater, owned by Alexander Dumas the father. On his advice, he sent the play to print, but soon realized that dramaturgy would not bring him fame and livelihood.
Since childhood, he was attracted by distant countries, and he always dreamed of travel and adventure. While working part-time in a popular magazine, he wrote a column for which he wrote historical and popular science notes.
In 1862, in just a few months, he wrote his first fantasy work, “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” which was published in the same year by the famous Parisian publisher Etzel. From that moment, Jules Verne began close collaboration with the Etzel publishing house, which lasted 25 years.
The novel created a real sensation and was soon translated into all European languages. Jules Verne began his very busy work, because according to the contract with the publishing house, he had to submit two novels a year or write one two-volume book.
Since 1857, Jules Verne has been married to a beautiful widow with two children. For the sake of marriage to Honorine Morel, Verne had to become a stockbroker and borrow 50,000 francs from his father in order to become a shareholder in the company and be able to support his family. A stable financial income allowed him to engage in literary activities and travel.
Jules Verne really liked it. On a yacht he traveled around the Mediterranean Sea, visited Italy, England, Scotland and the Scandinavian countries. Visited North America, saw the frozen Niagara Falls.
It can be assumed that the reason for Verne to write his first adventure novel was his acquaintance with an unusual person for his time. Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, who called himself simply Nadar, was a famous aeronaut, photographer, artist and writer. Nadar’s passionate, enthusiastic and even somewhat adventurous nature was in tune with Verne’s thirst for travel and adventure. He had long been interested in aeronautics and wrote his first novel very quickly.
The first work of Jules Verne appeared in a timely manner. The public was very enthusiastic and interested in covering the adventures of travelers who tried to find the sources of the Nile in the jungles of Africa. Therefore, by the way, there were works in which the writer, with great knowledge of the matter and even with diagrams, drawings and maps, described adventures in different parts of the world, under water and on the moon.
Most of the works contain predictions of discoveries and inventions, which were subsequently brought to life. Jules Verne considered this a mere coincidence, but before writing a new work, he always very carefully examined all available sources, drew conclusions and relied on many facts. Therefore, a seemingly fantastically unthinkable situation or technical device has always had a scientific basis.
But intrigued readers did not have to know the whole background behind the appearance of more and more new works by the science fiction writer. They sold like hotcakes. The novel "Around the World in 80 Days", published by Etzel's publishing house in 1872, became the best-selling novel for which the writer received the largest fee.
Jules Verne died at the very beginning of the 20th century in 1905, leaving behind about a hundred wonderful works that are interesting not only to young people, but also to mature ones.
Jules Verne, a 19th-century French writer, became famous for his revolutionary science fiction novels like Around the World in Eighty Days and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
early years
Jules Verne was born on February 8, 1828 in Nantes, France, a busy seaport city. There, Verne was exposed to seagoing ships departing and arriving, which sparked his imagination for travel and adventure even in his early years. While attending boarding school, he began writing short stories and poetry. After this, his father, a lawyer, sent his eldest son to Paris to study law.
He turned out to be a great supporter of literature and theater, and began to frequent Parisian famous literary circles, where he became friends with a group of artists and writers, including Alexandre Dumas and his son. After receiving his law degree in 1849, Verne remained in Paris to indulge his artistic inclinations. The following year, he wrote his first one-act play, Broken Straws.
Beginning of a writer's career
Verne continued to write despite pressure from his father, who wanted his son to continue his legal career. The peak of his relationship with his father came in 1852, when Verne refused his father’s offer to open his own law office in the city of Nantes. As a result, the aspiring writer chose a meagerly paid job as a secretary of the lyric theater.
In 1856, Verne met and fell in love with Honorine de Viane, a young widow with two daughters. They married in 1857, and realizing that he needed to strengthen his financial fortunes, Verne began working as a broker. However, he refused to give up his writing career, and that same year he published his first book.
The first glory of Jules Verne
In 1859, Verne and his wife set out on the first of about 20 trips to the British Isles. The journey made a strong impression on Jules Verne, which inspired him to write a new novel, which was published only after his death. In 1861, his first son, Michel Jean Pierre Verne, was born.
Jules Verne's literary activity failed to gain momentum during this period, but his fortunes began to change with his acquaintance with the famous editor and publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, in 1862. At the time, Verne was working on a novel that had a heavy dose of scientific exploration and adventure, and Etzel found a developing style in it. In 1863, Etzel published Five Weeks in a Balloon, the first of a series of adventure novels by Jules Verne. Verne subsequently signed a contract in which he would submit new works to the publisher each year, most of which would be serialized in Etzel's store.
The period of Verne's brilliant novels and stories
In 1864, Etzel published The Adventures of Captain Hatteras and Journey to the Center of the Earth. That same year, Paris in the Twentieth Century was rejected for publication, but in 1865 Jules Verne was still in print with the novels The Land to the Moon and The Quest for the Castaways.
Inspired by his love of travel and adventure, Verne purchased a boat, and he and his wife spent much time sailing the seas. Verne's own adventures, sailing in various ports from the British Isles to the Mediterranean Sea, were the main components of his stories and tales. In 1867, Etzel published Verne's story, “An Illustrated Geography of France and Its Colonies,” and in the same year, Verne went with his brother to the United States of America. He only stayed there for a week, but his visit to America had a lasting impact that was reflected in his later works.
In 1869, Etzel published one of Verne's most famous novels, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which has now been translated into many languages around the world. Beginning in late 1872, Verne's serialized version, Around the World in Eighty Days, first appeared in print. The story of Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout takes readers on an adventurous world tour at a time when travel was easy and inviting. Since its debut, the work has been adapted for theatre, radio, television and film. Verne remained prolific throughout the decade, penning a number of brilliant novels and stories during this time, such as “The Mysterious Island,” “The Surviving Chancellor,” “Michael Strogoff,” and “The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain.”
Later years
Despite his enormous professional success by 1870, Jules Verne began to experience tension in his personal life. He sent his rebellious son to a workhouse in 1876, and a few years later, Michel caused even more problems through his relationship with a minor. In 1886, Verne was shot in the leg by his nephew Gaston, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life. His longtime publisher and collaborator, Etzel, died a week later, and his mother died the following year.
Having established his residence in the northern French city of Amiens, Jules Verne began serving on the city council in 1888. Suffering from diabetes, he died at home on March 24, 1905.
His additional works surfaced decades later. The story "Back to Britain" was finally published in 1989, 130 years after it was written. And “Paris in the 20th Century,” which was previously considered too far-fetched, with images of skyscrapers, gas-powered cars and public transport, was published as early as 1994.
In all, Verne wrote more than 60 books, as well as dozens of plays, stories, and librettos. He conjured hundreds of memorable characters, and envisioned countless innovations of his time, including submarines, space travel, terrestrial voyages, and deep-sea exploration.
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Biography, life story of Jules Verne
On February 8, 1828, in Nantes, France, a boy was born into the family of a lawyer, whose name Jules-Gabriel Verne became universally known far beyond the borders of France. The father of the future member of the French Geographical Society, the founder of science fiction, as well as the author of 66 novels, 30 plays, 20 novellas and short stories, was lawyer Pierre Verne. Since the family owned a law firm, the father reasonably assumed that Jules, as befits the eldest child, would eventually become at his helm. The newborn's mother, née Allotte de la Fuyer, came from a very ancient family of shipbuilders and shipowners, many generations of whom lived and worked in Nantes, which for centuries was one of the largest ports in France.The romance of the port city could not but influence the boy’s worldview. From early childhood, young Jules was attracted by sailing ships and travel to distant lands. In 1839, an 11-year-old boy attempted to make his dream come true by hiring himself as a cabin boy on the schooner Coralie, which was sailing to India. Fortunately, the father managed to protect his son from a rash act.
According to his father's ideas, Jules was supposed to become a lawyer, which happened when he graduated from the Paris School of Law. But, having received his diploma in 1849, Jules Verne chose to devote himself entirely to literature and theater, remaining in Paris. By this he doomed himself to a half-starved existence, since his father did not like this decision. However, this did not stop Jules from enthusiastically mastering a new field for himself, writing various literary works, ranging from comedies to opera librettos.
Intuition led the aspiring writer to the National Library, where, listening to lectures and scientific reports, he picked up a lot of interesting information on geography, navigation, and astronomy, although he had little idea of what he needed it for. However, in 1851, the first creation with historical and geographical content was published - the story “The First Ships of the Mexican Fleet.” This work made a great impression on Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, who began to patronize Jules Verne. It is believed that it was Dumas who advised the young protégé to start writing adventure stories. However, Jules Verne, as always, acted in his own way, deciding to describe the entire globe, from nature to the customs of peoples, combining science and art in his novels.
CONTINUED BELOW
Since the implementation of this idea required a lot of time, in 1862 Jules Verne broke with the theater, which allowed him to complete his first adventure novel, “5 Weeks in a Balloon.” On the advice of Dumas, Jules turned to the Journal of Education and Entertainment, where this novel was published. The first collaboration with the magazine turned out to be so successful that its publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, seeing in the new author the talent of an “adventure” writer, entered into a 20-year contract with Jules Verne. According to its terms, the writer was obliged to publish 2 novels per year. This required a lot of effort, but at the same time it provided prosperity for the family of Jules Verne, who married in 1857. His chosen one was the widow Honorine de Vian, who at the time of her new marriage had two children. In 1961, they had their first and only child together, son Michel.
Further, as if trying to make up for the time lost in his youth, a number of masterpiece works come from the writer’s pen. In 1864, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was published, in 1865 – “The Voyage of Captain Hatteras” and “From the Earth to the Moon”.
After finishing “The Children of Captain Grant” in 1868, Jules Verne decided to combine previously written works with future books. The result of this decision was the “Extraordinary Journeys” trilogy, which, in addition to “The Children of Captain Grant,” included “20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” and “The Mysterious Island,” published in 1870 and 1875, respectively.
By 1872, Jules Verne was finally tired of the bustle of the big city. The new place of residence was the provincial Amiens, located near Paris. From that time on, his life was reduced exclusively to literary creativity. According to biographers, the writer spent 15 hours a day at his desk. The practical result of this diligence was the extraordinarily successful novel Around the World in 80 Days.
In 1878, another world-famous adventure work, The 15-Year-Old Captain, was published, the theme of racial discrimination was continued in the next novel, North vs. South, published shortly after the end of the American Civil War in 1887.
Jules Verne's life ended on April 24, 1905 in Amiens. The cause of death was diabetes. He left numerous works as a legacy to his descendants, which even today can provide an exciting pastime.