Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

In 1866, ships around the world report a huge sea monster. Professor Pierre Aronnax of the Paris Museum, his faithful servant Conseil and the Canadian harpooner Ned Land join an American frigate to hunt it, and are thrown into the sea onto its back: it is a submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo, who has broken all ties with the land. As Nemo's prisoners and guests they travel the oceans, walking on the sea floor, visiting the ruins of Atlantis and the South Pole, fighting giant squid, and passing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean through a secret tunnel under the isthmus of Suez.

Jules Verne published the novel in 1869 and 1870, when submarines were still experiments. The title refers to the distance travelled, not the depth, and Nemo's secret past is revealed in The Mysterious Island. Its spirit of science and adventure continues in A Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Jules Verne (1828–1905) grew up in the port city of Nantes, watching ships leave for distant lands. Sent to Paris to study law, he wrote for the theatre instead, until the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel accepted Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1863 and signed him for a series of 'extraordinary voyages' that lasted the rest of his life.

In more than sixty novels he took readers under the sea, to the Moon and around the world, mixing adventure with real science and geography. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days made him one of the most translated authors in history and inspired generations of scientists and explorers.