Jules Verne

Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist born in Nantes, widely regarded as one of the founding figures of science fiction. From 1862 he wrote for the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel under contract to produce several volumes a year, together forming the Voyages extraordinaires -- an ambitious project to chart the whole of human knowledge through adventure fiction. The series includes his best-known novels: Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, From the Earth to the Moon, Around the World in Eighty Days, and The Mysterious Island, works notable for imagining submarines, space travel, and other technologies well ahead of their time. Verne was made a Knight, and later an Officer, of the Legion of Honour. He remains one of the most translated authors in the world, and his adventure-driven, meticulously researched style shaped the science-fiction and adventure genres for generations of writers who followed.