The Blockade Runners

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.