Biography

Jules Verne

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Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) was one of the most famous French novelists of all time. His major work is the "Extraordinary Journeys", a series of more than sixty adventure novels including "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "Around the World in 80 Days", "20.000 Leagues under the Seas" and "The Mysterious Island" which had multiple cinematographic adaptations. Nicknamed "The father of science fiction", he is the second most translated author in the world after Agatha Christie.
- IMDb mini biography by: Fix

In 1863, he wrote "Paris in the 20th Century" about a young man who lives in a world of skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators, and a worldwide communications network, yet cannot find happiness, and comes to a tragic end. His publisher thought the novel's pessimism would damage Verne's career, and declined to publish it. Verne put the manuscript in a safe, where it was discovered by his great-grandson in 1989.
On 9 March 1886, as Verne was coming home, his nephew, Gaston, charged at him with a gun. As the two wrestled for it, it went off. The second bullet entered Verne's left shin. He never fully recovered. Gaston spent the rest of his life in an asylum.
His novel "The Mysterious Island" is a sequel to both "In Search of the Castaways" and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".
His father was so outraged when he learned Jules was not going to continue law (both he and his father were lawyers), he cut off all financial support. Verne eventually became a stockbroker.
Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999.

We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.
Solitude, isolation, are painful things and beyond human endurance.
Ah! Young people, travel if you can, and if you cannot - travel all the same!
Imagine a society in which there were neither rich nor poor. What evils, afflictions, sorrows, disorders, catastrophes, disasters, tribulations, misfortunes, agonies, calamities, despair, desolation and ruin would be unknown to man!
If Providence has created the stars and the planets, man has called the cannonball into existence.

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