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Jules Verne

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  Jules Verne was born February 28, 1828 in Nantes, France. His parents were Pierre, a serious, strict, upright attorney, and Sophie Verne. Jules was their first child. The Vernes lived on an island on the Loire river, right outside Nantes, called the Ile Feydeau. During the spring, the river would melt and flood, sometimes spilling water right over onto the island. The floods terrified Jules as a child and he feared the island would be uprooted and swept down the river. However, when over time, the island stayed where it was, his fear vanished. But he grew up still fascinated by the idea of a floating island. Jules had a brother, Paul, who was a year younger, and was one of his best friends growing up. Jules also had four other siblings, all born after him.

  When Jules was nine years old, he went off to boarding school (the Lycee) with Paul. At age eleven, he tried to make his dreams of adventure come true by slipping out early one morning. He met a cabin boy in the town square and traded places with him. Soon he was aboard the Coralie and sailing for the Orient! However, the Coralie had one more home call to make and when they stopped at Paimboeuf that evening, Jules found his father waiting for him. A neighbor had seen Jules board the ship and told his parents. Jules was sorry to leave the boat but also relieved because he had been very seasick!

  After he graduated from high school, Jules went to Paris, where he was supposed to be studying law. His father had high hopes of passing his law practice on to Jules. However, Jules was concentrating on writing. He wanted to be a great playwright. It was here Jules met Alexander Dumas (author of the Three Musketeers). Dumas was very rich and famous and owned his own theatre. Dumas took Jules under his wing and it was in his theatre that his first plays were produced. When Pierre Verne found out Jules wasn't studying law, he cut off his allowance. However, Jules wasn't discouraged and continued to write. When he went broke, he tried working as a law clerk, but soon gave it up. Luckily, Dumas came to his rescue and made him the secretary of the Lyric Theatre. With a steady income, Verne was free to write. He wrote several plays but he became tired of the theatre job and after about five years gave it and started writing full time.

  Soon after that, he travelled to Amiens, France where he went to see a friend get married. While he was there, he met the sister of the bride, Honorine de Viane Morel, and fell in love. Honorine was a widow at 26 years old and had two small children. But being a starving artist like he was, Jules couldn't support a family of four without a job. So, taking a cue from Honorine's brother, he got a share in a broker's office to earn money. So it was with a job that he married Honorine in January of 1857. For the next six years, he wrote in the mornings (from 5 to 10) and worked at the stock exchange in the afternoons. In 1861, their first son was born. His first book, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was published in 1863. The publisher's name was Hetzel, and he recognized Jules' talent. He signed a contract with Jules right after Five Weeks in a Balloon-two books a year for the next twenty years, for 10,000 francs a year (And five times after that would he tear up the contract for a better one). Jules quit the stock exchange and settled down to write.

  Journey to the Center of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon were Jules' next books. In From the Earth to the Moon, Verne made one his most extraordinary forecasts that came true- his hero sets off to moon in a rocket blasted off from a launching pad in Florida! Remember, this forecast was made in 1865! This just goes to show how revolutionary Verne was.

  The Vernes left Paris after that and lived for a few years in a tiny fishing village at the mouth of the Somme river. Jules spent a lot of time sailing the English Channel in his boat, the Saint-Michel. Here he was inspired to write Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, about Captain Nemo and his submarine, the Nautilus. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian war broke out and Verne was conscripted, along with his boat. Honorine took the children back to Amiens during the war. After it was over, Jules, who remained emotionally untouched by the war, went back to writing.

  Around the World in Eighty Days was first published serially in a newspaper in 1872. The story met such success, that people were placing bets on Phileas Fogg's race against time, and newspapers carried bulletins on the story's progress. This success was only the beginning for Around the World in Eighty Days. A stage presentation was produced, complete with a live elephant, and ran for two years.

  However, after all this success, Verne met up with a series of bad luck. First, his brother Paul's son, Gaston, suffered and mental breakdown. He was confined to his home but one day in March of 1886, he escaped and somehow obtained a loaded revolver. On a wild impulse, he went to his uncle Jules' house and rushed Verne with the gun. Verne tried to wrestle it free from Gaston but as he did, the gun went off twice-one shot going into the doorstep and the other going into Verne's leg, right below the knee. The wound was relatively slight but very painful and doomed Verne to walk the rest of his life with a cane. On top of this, Hetzel, the publisher who had made his career, died, followed by the death of his own mother. His father had also died a few years before. Finally, he had to sell his yacht, the Saint Michel IV, because he could no longer steer with his leg. But he continued to write.

  He continued to live, with his wife, Honorine, until his eyes failed, followed by his health. Finally he died on March 24, 1905. He is buried in the Madeleine Cemetary on the outskirts of Amiens. However, he continued to live on in the hearts of his fans- in 1922, Marconi, father of the radio, summed it up by saying,"Jules Verne made people see visions, wish they could do things, and stimulated them to do them."

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