Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas
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3 Although modern French editions have invariably followed the illustrated 1871 edition, its text seems on balance slightly inferior to the unillustrated 18mo editions.
4 ‘Propontis’ by ‘the Sea of Marmara’, ‘the Asphaltite Sea’ by ‘the Dead Sea’, ‘the Sandwich Islands’ by ‘Hawaii’, ‘New Holland’ by ‘Australia’, ‘Viti’ by ‘Fiji’, ‘the New Hebrides’ by ‘Vanuatu’, ‘Lazarev Island’ by ‘Matahiva’, ‘Clermont-Tonnerre’ by ‘Reao’, ‘the Friendly Islands’ by ‘Tonga’, ‘Navigators Islands’ by ‘Samoa’, and ‘Edo’ by ‘Tokyo’; but not for instance ‘Ceylon’ by ‘Sri Lanka’. A relatively traditional spelling system is used.
5 Thus Verne writes ‘gymontes’ for ‘gymnotes’, ‘chrysostones’ for ‘chrysostoses’, ‘thétys’ for ‘Tethys’, ‘xhantes’ for ‘xanthes’, ‘molubars’ for ‘Mobula’, ‘albicores’ for ‘albacores’, ‘aulostones’ for ‘aulostomes’, ‘munérophis’ for ‘murénophis’, ‘melanopteron’ for ‘melanopterus’, ‘thasards’ for ‘thazards’, ‘spinorbis’ for ‘spirorbis’, ‘dauphinules’ for ‘dauphinelles’, ‘cacouannes’ for ‘caouannes’, ‘alariées’ for ‘araliées’, ‘Rhodoménie’ for ‘Rhodyménie’, ‘pantacrines’ for ‘pentacrines’, ‘dorripes’ for ‘dorippes’, ‘chryasaores’ for ‘Chrysaora’, ‘Iamettosa’ for ‘lamellosa’, ‘Cyproea’ for ‘Cypraea’, ‘Laurentia primafetida’ for ‘Laurencia pinnatifida’, ‘apsiphoroïdes’ for ‘Aspiphoroides’, and ‘phyctallines’ and ‘Phyctalis’ for ‘Phyllactina’ and ‘Phyllactis’.
Select Bibliography
Hachette, Michel de l’Ormeraie, and Rencontre represent the main complete printed editions of the Voyages extraordinaires since the original Hetzel publication, although 44 of the books have also appeared in Livre de Poche. Since the 1980s, a vast literature has been produced on the life and works of Verne, of which only a small selection can be mentioned here.
Few monographs have appeared in English, most notably: Andrew Martin, The Mask of the Prophet: The Extraordinary Fictions of Jules Verne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); William Butcher, Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Self: Space and Time in the ‘Voyages extraordinaires’ (Macmillan, 1990); Arthur B. Evans, Jules Verne Rediscovered: Didacticism and the Scientific Novel (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988); and Ian B. Thompson, Jules Verne’s Scotland: In Fact and Fiction (Edinburgh: Luath, 2011).1
There exist many stimulating collections of articles, notably Science Fiction Studies, vol. 32, no. 95 (2005), ‘A Jules Verne Centenary’; Europe: Revue littéraire mensuelle, vol. 83, no. 909–10 (2005), ‘Jules Verne’; Jules Verne: Cent ans après, ed. Jean-Pierre Picot and Christian Robin (Terre de brume, 2005); Jules Verne ou les inventions romanesques, ed. Christophe Reffait and Alain Schaffner (Amiens: Encrage, 2007); Les ‘Voyages extraordinaires’ de Jules Verne: De la création à la réception, ed. Marie-Françoise Melmoux-Montaubin and Christophe Reffait (Amiens: Encrage, 2012); Collectionner l’extraordinaire, sonder l’ailleurs: Essais sur Jules Verne en hommage à Jean-Michel Margot, ed. Terry Harpold, Daniel Compère, and Volker Dehs (Amiens: Encrage, 2015). In addition, many studies have appeared in reviews, notably in: Verniana (in English and French), Revue Jules Verne, Planète Jules Verne, J.V., Cahiers du Centre d’études verniennes, Bulletin de la société Jules Verne, and Mundo Verne.
Comprehensive biographical information can be found in my Jules Verne: The Definitive Biography (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2006; revised 2nd edition, Acadian, 2008).
More than a dozen annotated editions of 20T have appeared in recent decades; none, however, establishes the text or contains research on the manuscripts.
Nearly all useful studies on 20T are in French. The following are a selection in both languages:
Studies
Barthes, Roland, ‘Nautilus et Bateau ivre’, in Mythologies (Seuil, 1957, 1970), 80–2 (brilliant but ultimately limited exploration of the psycho-physiology of Verne’s ships and their closure and appropriation of space).
Bradbury, Ray, ‘The Ardent Blasphemers’, in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, translated by Anthony Bonner (Toronto, New York, London, and Sydney: Bantam, 1962, 1981), 1–12 (accompanying a reasonable translation, a lyrical comparison, by a long-standing admirer, of the ‘American’ spirit of Nemo and Ahab, with Nemo representing more positive values of curiosity and belief in historical progress).
Butcher, William, ‘Les Épisodes fantômes de Vingt mille lieues’, Europe, no. 909–10, 2005, 119–34, and http://www.ibiblio.org/julesverne/articles/episodes.doc (reproduces and analyses the manuscript descriptions of the English Channel).
Butcher, William, ‘Hidden Treasures’, Science Fiction Studies, vol. 32, no. 95 (2005), 43–69, and http://www.ibiblio.org/julesverne/articles/hiddentreasures.htm (reproduces and analyses unknown passages from the manuscripts).
Butcher, William, Jules Verne inédit: Les Manuscrits déchiffrés (Lyon: ENS éditions and Institut d’histoire du livre, 2015), 165–204 (transcribes many unknown or unpublished excerpts or chapters from the most famous novels, and interprets them in the perspective of Hetzel’s many interventions, often considered harmful).
Chamberlin, Sean, The Remarkable Ocean World of Jules Verne: A Study Guide for ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea’ (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2002).
Costello, Peter, introduction and notes in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, ‘translated by H. Frith’ (this is an error: the translator is Lewis Mercier) (Everyman, 1993), pp. xix–xxvii and 275–304 (old-fashioned introduction, disastrous translation, but useful notes).
Coward, David, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, translation, introduction, and notes (Penguin, 2017) (very good, literary, translation; readable and informative, albeit brief, critical material).
Dehs, Volker, translation and notes, in Zwanzigtausend Meilen unter dem Meer (Dusseldorf: Artemis & Winkler, 2007), 625–757 (competent notes, but almost no genetic or pre-1869 biographical information).
Destombes, Marcel, ‘Le Manuscrit de Vingt mille lieues sous les mers de la Société de géographie’, Bulletin de la société Jules Verne, no. 35–6 (1975), 59–70 (highly informative and ground-breaking study of the two manuscripts).
Dumas, Olivier, Piero Gondolo della Riva, and Volker Dehs, eds, Correspondance inédite de Jules Verne et de Pierre-Jules Hetzel, 1863–1886, vol. 1 (Geneva: Slatkine, 1999) (an essential tool, which brings together and completes the relevant transcriptions of the letters between Verne and Hetzel).
Gagneux, Jean, ‘Le Nautilus’, L’Armement, no. 66 ( June 1981), 61–84 (accurate, well-informed study of the technical aspects of Nemo’s submarine).
Gagneux, Jean, ‘Le Nautilus pouvait naviguer’, La Nouvelle Revue maritime, no. 386 (1984), 99–111 (knowledgeably studies the Nautilus from the perspective of modern submarine technology, finding a few slips).
Gagneux, Jean, Sous-marin à propulsion électrique ‘Nautilus’: Dossier descriptive et plan de compartimentage, distributed in typed and photocopied form [1980] (witty, scholarly study).
Guermonprez, Jean-H., ‘Le Nautilus est-il “Le Bateau ivre”?’, Bulletin de la société Jules Verne, no. 13 (1970), 1–5 (convincingly proves Rimbaud’s borrowing from Verne).
Ishibashi, Masataka, ‘Création littéraire et processus éditorial: Le Cas de Vingt mille lieues sous les mers’, in Les ‘Voyages extraordinaires’ de Jules Verne, ed. Marie-Françoise Melmoux-Montaubin and Christophe Reffait (Amiens: Encrage, 2012), 155–72 (proposes the innovative hypothesis that the MÉR and 18mo editions are more intensively corrected than the octavo ones, and were therefore prepared later).
Ishibashi, Masataka, ‘Les Références de Jules Verne dans Vingt mille lieues sous les mers’, in Collectionner l’extraordinaire, sonder l’ailleurs: Essais sur Jules Verne en hommage à Jean-Michel Margot, ed. Terry Harpold, Daniel Compère, and Volker Dehs (Amiens: Encrage, 2015), 53–64 (article published in Japanese in 2010; description of selected documentary sources of 20T )
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Martin, Andrew, The Knowledge of Ignorance: From Genesis to Jules Verne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 150–9 and passim (brilliantly ironic account of the structural foundations of Verne’s imagination; explores 20T as ark and archive).
Mickel, Emanuel, introduction and notes in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, ‘a new translation by Emanuel J. Mickel’ (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 3–63 (thin introduction, strongly criticizing Mercier, although the translation is in fact mainly Mercier’s; most of the 482 notes are uninformative).
Miller, Walter James, ‘Jules Verne in America: A Translator’s Preface’, in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, translated by Walter James Miller, assisted by Judith Ann Tirsch (New York: Washington Square Press, 1966), 7–22 (useful introduction on the problems of translation; although called ‘New’ and ‘Definitive’, and castigating previous editions, especially Mercier, the translation omits portions of Verne’s text).
Miller, Walter James, ‘A New Look at Jules Verne’, ‘Jules Verne, Rehabilitated’, and notes in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, translated by Lewis Mercier (New York: Crowell, 1976), 7–22, 356–62 (analyses Verne’s strange reputation in the USA, caused partly by the poor quality of the translations; but reprints Mercier’s poor translation, although restoring the deleted passages).
Miller, Walter James, and Frederick Paul Walter, introduction and notes in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993), pp. vii–xxii and passim (interesting introduction on the problems of translation; very good translation; often informative notes).
Noiray, Jacques, ‘L’Inscription de la science dans le texte littéraire: L’Exemple de Vingt mille lieues sous les mers’, in Jules Verne ou les inventions romanesques, ed. Christophe Reffait et Alain Schaffner (Amiens: Encrage, 2007), 29–50 (literary technique).
Noiray, Jacques, Le Romancier et la machine, vol. 2, Jules Verne, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (Corti, 1983), 64–71, 103–7, 130–6, and passim (subtle study, with quotations, of Aronnax and the Nautilus).
Porcq, Christian, ‘NGORA, ou les images de la folie dans les Voyages extraordinaires de Jules Verne’, unpublished doctoral thesis (University of Paris V, 1991), passim (imaginatively exposes the personal and psychoanalytic aspects of 20T, especially dreams and the subconscious).
Robin, Christian, ‘Le Récit sauvé des eaux’, Jules Verne 2: L’Écriture vernienne (Minard, 1978), 33–56 (important structuralist study of the theme of writing within 20T ).
Robin, Christian, ‘Verne et Michelet, chantres de l’océan’, La Nouvelle Revue maritime, no. 386, 1984, 59–65 (the borrowing from Michelet).
Scepi, Henri, edition established, presented, and annotated, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Paris: Gallimard, ‘La Pléiade’, 2012), 1313–88 (useful notes; quotes a few extracts from the second manuscript following Destombes, unfortunately including the mistakes; no establishment of the text or genetic research).
Valetoux, Philippe, Jules Verne en mer et contre tous (Magellan, 2005) (important biographical study, with many unpublished documents).
Verne, Jules, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, 1872) (the first English-language version, translated by Lewis Mercier, still the most reprinted; cuts more than 20 per cent and contains howlers).
Vierne, Simone, Jules Verne, une vie, une œuvre, une époque (Balland, 1986), 197–218 (readable survey of 20T, followed by extracts from the novel).
Vierne, Simone, introduction and archives of the work in Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Garnier–Flammarion, 1977), 5–48, 519–35 (informative account of the background to the novel).
Walter, Frederick Paul, and William Butcher, ‘Triumphant Translating: It’s a Matter of Style’, Verniana, vol. 7 (2014–15), 123–36 (reviews of two English editions of Twenty Thousand Leagues; evoking textual and translation questions, including the defects of the French editions).
Walter, Frederick Paul, introduction, notes, and translation in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, 319–537 and 663–5, in Jules Verne, Amazing Journeys (New York: Excelsior, 2010) (excellent translation in American English).
Wier, Stuart K., ‘The Design of Jules Verne’s Submarine Nautilus’, Extraordinary Voyages, vol. 19, no. 3 (2013), 1–24 (thorough analysis of technical aspects of Nemo’s submarine).
Principal Non-Fiction Sources
Figuier, Louis, La Vie et les mœurs des animaux: Zoophytes et mollusques (Hachette, 1866).
Flachat, Eugène, Navigation à vapeur transocéanienne (Baudry, 1866).
Frédol, Alfred, Le Monde de la mer (Hachette, 1865).
Gratiolet, Louis-Pierre, De la physionomie et des mouvements d’expression (Hetzel, 1865).
Lacépède, Bernard-Germain, Histoire naturelle des poissons (Saugrain, 1793–1803).
Mangin, Arthur, Les Mystères de l’océan (Tours: Mame, 1864).
Maury, Matthew Fontaine, The Physical Geography of the Sea (New York: Harper, 1855) (translated by P. Terquem as Géographie physique de la mer (Corréard, 1858); translated again by Zurcher and Margollé (Hetzel, 1866)).
Michelet, Jules, La Mer (Hachette, 1861).
Renard, Léon, Le Fond de la mer (Hetzel, 1868).
Vorepierre, Dupiney de, and Jean-François-Marie de Marcoux, eds, Dictionnaire français illustré et encyclopédie universelle (Bureau de la publication and Lévy, 1847–63).
Zurcher, Frédéric, and Élie Margollé, Le Monde sous-marin (Hetzel, 1868).
1 All places of publication are London or Paris unless otherwise indicated; publication details are often omitted for pre-modern volumes. Dates of Verne’s works are those of the beginning of their first publication, usually in serial form.
A Chronology of Jules Verne
1828 8 February: birth of Jules Verne at 4 rue Olivier-de-Clisson, Feydeau Island, Nantes. His parents are Pierre, a lawyer and son and grandson of lawyers, and a reactionary and religious self-flagellator; and Sophie, née Allotte de la Fuÿe, Breton and artistic, from a military line traced back to an N. Allott, a Scottish archer ennobled by Louis XI.
1829 Birth of brother, Paul, later a naval officer, but who retired in 1859 and became a stockbroker; followed by those of sisters Anna (1836), Mathilde (1839), and Marie (1842).
1830 Jules hears the street battles of the July Revolution.
1833 First bucolic summer at Uncle Prudent Allotte’s with the Tronson cousins — Henri, Edmond, Caroline, and Marie — all about the same age. Jules climbs the trees with Paul; he will write his dreams of travel and his ‘invocations’.
1834–8 Goes to boarding-school: the teacher, Mme Sambain, is still waiting for her sea-captain husband after thirty years.
1836 Jules slips onto a three-master, breathes heady odours, and dreams of navigation. Henri and Edmond drown in the Loire.
1837 The family rent a cottage in Chantenay looking over the Loire, where they will spend six months each year. Jules hires a skiff, which sinks; he plays at Crusoe on an island. With Paul, sent to boarding-school Saint-Stanislas, where he will receive merits in geography, translation from Greek and Latin, and singing.
1839 The boy runs away, apparently on board the Octavie, heading for the ‘Indies’. His father catches him at Paimbœuf.
1840 Boarding at the St Donatien Junior Seminary, with friends Aristide Hignard and Adolphe Bonamy. Composes prayers, pastiches, acrostics, and poems. At this time, the family move to Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
1842 His father prints two poems about his son’s love for the Loire, predicting a career as a ‘scholar rather than a captain’.
1843–5 Attends Lycée Royal de Nantes, but falls a year behind, through illness or resitting. Is in love with his cousin Caroline; the families discuss marriage.
1846 Passes baccalauréat in arts (‘with credit’). Studies law at home, since his father wishes to pass on his practice.
1847 Pierre does not allow Jules to sign up as a trainee ship’s off
icer. First year law exams in Paris. Passion for Herminie Arnault-Grossetière, to whom he dedicates many poems. During this period, writes a novel, A Priest in 1839, and a tragedy, Alexander VI.
1848 Continues his law studies, sharing a room at 24 Rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie, in the Latin Quarter. His uncle Châteaubourg introduces him into literary salons.
1849 Through the chiromancer Casimir d’Arpentigny, meets Alexandre Dumas fils and père. Passes law degree and avoids conscription. Father allows him to stay on in Paris.
1850 Has composed about twenty comedies and tragedies, including La Conspiration des poudres. 12 June: his one-act comedy Les Pailles rompues runs for fourteen nights at Dumas’s Théâtre Historique, and is published.
1851 Publishes ‘Les Premiers navires de la Marine mexicaine’ and ‘Un Voyage en ballon’. Works as a bank clerk and tutor. Is hired as a notarial clerk, but his employer dies immediately. Moves to Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, opposite Hignard’s room.
1852–5 Becomes secretary of Théâtre Lyrique. Publishes ‘Martin Paz’, ‘Maître Zacharius’, ‘Un Hivernage dans les glaces’, and in collaboration the play Les Châteaux en Californie. His co-written operetta Le Colin-maillard is performed to music by Hignard. Is rejected by a series of young women. Frequents brothels.
1856 Goes to a wedding in Amiens, and meets a young widow with two children, Honorine de Viane.
1857 10 January: marries Honorine; becomes an assistant stockbroker, and moves several times. Publication of art criticism Salon de 1857.
1859–60 Visits Bordeaux, Liverpool, Edinburgh, the Highlands, and London with Hignard, and is greatly marked by the experience. Writes Voyage en Angleterre et en Écosse and Paris au XXe siècle.
1861–2 Birth of only child, Michel, while he is on a decisive trip to Norway and Denmark with Hignard and Émile Lorois. Writes Joyeuses misères de trois voyageurs en Scandinavie. The juvenile writer Alfred de Bréhat introduces him to Jules Hetzel. The publisher orders proofs for Voyage en Angleterre et en Écosse, but then rejects the book. Signature of a contract for ‘Voyage en l’air’, a book about ballooning.