 The enormously popular French author, Jules Verne was one of the founding fathers of science fiction. Verne's stories caught the spirit of the 19th century and its uncritical enthusiasm about scientific progress and invention. His works were often written in the form of a travel book taking the readers on fantastic voyages. Many of Verne's ideas have been hailed as prophetic, predicting some of the inventions that have changed our world, including the airplane, the submarine, and spacecraft. He published 65 novels, some twenty short stories and essays, thirty plays, an opera libretto and two geographical works.
Jules Verne was born in the port of Nantes in 1828. He later moved to Paris to study law. At 28 he married Honorine de Viane, a young widow, acquiring two step-children. Verne published several plays under the tutelage of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (jr.). He made his living as a stock broker until his first successful series Voyages Extraordinaire, published in 1863. Soon Verne's novels became enormously popular throughout the world. Without a scientific background or experiences as a traveler, Verne spent much of his time doing research for his books. However, when the logic of the story contradicted scientific knowledge, Verne took poetic license with science to serve his fast-paced adventures.
In the first part of his career Verne expressed optimism about progress and Europe's central role in the social and technical development of the world. In Verne's later novels the author's pessimism is reflected in the doom-laden fin-de-siècle atmosphere. In contrast to the adventurous spirit of his novels, Vernes' personal life was relatively uneventful with the exception of surviving a murder attempt by his insane nephew. Verne died of natural causes in Amiens on March 24, 1905. |
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