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In Hamburg, the impatient Professor Lidenbrock finds a coded note in an old Icelandic manuscript: the alchemist Arne Saknussemm claims to have reached the…
In Hamburg, the impatient Professor Lidenbrock finds a coded note in an old Icelandic manuscript: the alchemist Arne Saknussemm claims to have reached the centre of the Earth through the crater of an extinct volcano. With his nervous nephew Axel and a calm Icelandic guide named Hans, Lidenbrock climbs into the crater and descends through tunnels to an underground sea, giant mushrooms and creatures from prehistoric times.
Context and significance
Published in 1864, this is one of Jules Verne's most imaginative novels, mixing the geology of his day with pure adventure, and Axel's fear makes it as funny as it is thrilling. Verne also wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; see his life.
About the author
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.