Writer Jules 5. 40 interesting facts about the brilliant French writer Jules Verne

Jules Verne, a 19th-century French writer, became famous for his revolutionary science fiction novels like Around the World in Eighty Days and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Early years

Jules Verne was born on February 8, 1828 in Nantes, France, a busy seaport city. There, Verne was exposed to seagoing ships departing and arriving, which sparked his imagination for travel and adventure back in early years. While studying at boarding school, he began to write short stories and poetry. After this, his father, a lawyer, sent his eldest son to Paris to study law.

He turned out to be a great supporter of literature and theater, and began to often visit famous Parisian literary clubs, where he became friends with a group of artists and writers, including Alexandre Dumas and his son. After receiving his law degree in 1849, Verne remained in Paris to indulge his artistic inclinations. The following year, he wrote his first one act play“Broken straws.”

Beginning of a writer's career

Verne continued to write despite pressure from his father, who wanted his son to continue his legal career. The peak of his relationship with his father came in 1852, when Verne refused his father’s offer to open his own law office in the city of Nantes. As a result, the aspiring writer chose a meagerly paid job as a secretary of the lyric theater.

In 1856, Verne met and fell in love with Honorine de Viane, a young widow with two daughters. They married in 1857, and realizing that he needed to strengthen his financial condition, Vern began working as a broker. However, he refused to give up his writing career, and in the same year he published his first book.

The first glory of Jules Verne

In 1859, Verne and his wife set out on the first of about 20 trips to the British Isles. The journey made a strong impression on Jules Verne, which inspired him to write a new novel, which was published only after his death. In 1861, his first son, Michel Jean Pierre Verne, was born.

Jules Verne's literary activity failed to gain momentum during this period, but his fortunes began to change with his acquaintance with the famous editor and publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, in 1862. At that time, Verne was working on a novel that was imbued with a heavy dose of scientific research and adventure, and Etzel found in him evolving style. In 1863, Etzel published the novel Five Weeks hot air balloon”, the first in a series of adventure novels by Jules Verne. Verne subsequently signed a contract in which he would submit new works to the publisher each year, most of which would be serialized in Etzel's store.

The period of Verne's brilliant novels and stories

In 1864, Etzel published The Adventures of Captain Hatteras and Journey to the Center of the Earth. That same year, Paris in the Twentieth Century was rejected for publication, but in 1865 Jules Verne was still in print with the novels The Land to the Moon and The Quest for the Castaways.

Inspired by his love of travel and adventure, Verne purchased a boat, and he and his wife spent much time sailing the seas. Verne's own adventures, sailing in various ports from the British Isles to the Mediterranean Sea, were the main components of his stories and tales. In 1867, Etzel published Verne's story, “An Illustrated Geography of France and Its Colonies,” and in the same year, Verne went with his brother to the United States of America. He only stayed there for a week, but his visit to America had a lasting impact that was reflected in his later works.

In 1869, Etzel published one of the most famous novels Verne - “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, which at the moment translated into the languages ​​of many peoples of the world. Beginning in late 1872, Verne's serialized version, Around the World in Eighty Days, first appeared in print. The story of Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout takes readers on an adventurous world tour at a time when travel was easy and inviting. Since its debut, the work has been adapted for theatre, radio, television and film. Verne remained prolific throughout the decade, composing a number of brilliant novels and stories such as “ Mysterious island", "Surviving Chancellor", "Michael Strogoff", and " Fifteen year old captain”.

Later years

Despite his enormous professional success by 1870, Jules Verne began to experience tension in personal life. He sent his rebellious son to a workhouse in 1876, and a few years later, Michel summoned more more problems, through his relationship with a minor. In 1886, Verne was shot in the leg by his nephew Gaston, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life. His longtime publisher and collaborator, Etzel, died a week later, and his mother died the following year.

Having established his residence in the northern French city of Amiens, Jules Verne began serving on the city council in 1888. Suffering from diabetes, he died at home on March 24, 1905.

His additional works surfaced decades later. The story "Back to Britain" was finally published in 1989, 130 years after it was written. And “Paris in the 20th Century,” which was previously considered too far-fetched, with images of skyscrapers, gas-powered cars and public transport, was published as early as 1994.

In all, Verne wrote more than 60 books, as well as dozens of plays, stories, and librettos. He conjured hundreds of memorable characters, and envisioned countless innovations of his time, including submarines, space travel, terrestrial voyages, and deep-sea exploration.

The future writer was born in 1828 on February 8 in Nantes. His father was a lawyer, and his mother, half-Scottish, received an excellent education and took care of the house. Jules was the first child, after him another boy and three girls were born in the family.

Study and writing debut

Jules Verne studied law in Paris, but at the same time was actively involved in writing. He wrote stories and librettos for Parisian theaters. Some of them were staged and even had success, but this literary debut became the novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” which was written in 1864.

Family

The writer was married to Honorine de Vian, who by the time she met him was already a widow and had two children. They got married, and in 1861 they had a common son, Michel, a future cinematographer who filmed several of his father’s novels.

Popularity and travel

After his first novel was successful and favorably received by critics, the writer began to work hard and fruitfully (according to the recollections of his son Michel, Jules Verne spent time at work most of time: from 8 am to 8 pm).

It is interesting that since 1865 the cabin of the yacht “Saint-Michel” has become the writer’s study. This small ship was purchased by Jules Verne while working on the novel “The Children of Captain Grant.” Later, the yachts “San Michel II” and “San Michel III” were purchased, on which the writer sailed around the Mediterranean and Baltic Sea. He visited the south and north of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway), and the north of the African continent (for example, Algeria). I dreamed of sailing to St. Petersburg. But this was prevented by a strong storm that broke out in the Baltic. He had to give up all travel in 1886 after being wounded in the leg.

Recent years

The writer's latest novels differ from his first. They feel fear. The writer renounced the idea of ​​the omnipotence of progress. He began to understand that many achievements of science and technology would be used for criminal purposes. It should be noted that latest novels The writer was not popular.

The writer died in 1905 from diabetes. Until his death he continued to dictate books. Many of his novels, unpublished and unfinished during his lifetime, are published today.

Other biography options

• If you follow short biography Jules Verne, it turns out that over the 78 years of his life he wrote about 150 works, including documentaries and scientific works(only 66 novels, some of which are unfinished).
• The great-grandson of the writer, Jean Verne, a famous opera tenor, managed to find the novel “Paris of the 20th Century” (the novel was written in 1863 and published in 1994), which was considered a family legend and in the existence of which no one believed. It was in this novel that cars, the electric chair, and the fax were described.
• Jules Verne was a great soothsayer. He wrote in his novels about an airplane, a helicopter, video communications, television, about the Trans-Siberian Railway, about the Channel Tunnel, about space exploration (he almost exactly indicated the location of the cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral).
• The writer's works have been filmed in different countries world, and the number of films based on his books has exceeded 200.
• The writer has never been to Russia, but in 9 of his novels the action takes place in the then Russian Empire.

Biography, life story of Jules Verne

The romance of the port city could not but influence the boy’s worldview. Young Jules early childhood sailing ships and travel to distant lands beckoned. In 1839, an 11-year-old boy attempted to make his dream come true by hiring himself as a cabin boy on the schooner Coralie, which was sailing to India. Fortunately, the father managed to protect his son from a rash act.

According to his father's ideas, Jules was supposed to become a lawyer, which happened when he graduated from the Paris School of Law. But, having received his diploma in 1849, Jules Verne chose to devote himself entirely to literature and theater, remaining in Paris. By this he doomed himself to a half-starved existence, since his father did not like this decision. However, this did not stop Jules from enthusiastically mastering a new field for himself, writing various literary works, ranging from comedies to opera librettos.

Intuition led the aspiring writer to National Library, where he, listening to lectures and scientific reports, learned a lot interesting information in geography, navigation, astronomy, although he had little idea why he needed it. However, in 1851, the first creation with historical and geographical content was published - the story “The First Ships of the Mexican Fleet.” This work made a great impression on Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, who began to patronize Jules Verne. It is believed that it was Dumas who advised the young protégé to start writing adventure stories. However, Jules Verne, as always, did his own thing, deciding to describe the whole globe, starting from nature and ending with the customs of peoples, combining science and art in his novels.

CONTINUED BELOW

Further, as if trying to make up for the time lost in his youth, a number of masterpiece works come from the writer’s pen. In 1864, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was published, in 1865 – “The Voyage of Captain Hatteras” and “From the Earth to the Moon”.

After finishing “The Children of Captain Grant” in 1868, Jules Verne decided to combine previously written works with future books. The result of this decision was the trilogy " Extraordinary travels", which, in addition to "The Children of Captain Grant", included "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "The Mysterious Island", published in 1870 and 1875, respectively.

By 1872, Jules Verne was finally tired of the fuss big city. The new place of residence was the provincial Amiens, located near Paris. From that time on, his life was reduced exclusively to literary creativity. According to biographers, the writer spent 15 hours a day at his desk. The practical result of this diligence was the extraordinarily successful novel Around the World in 80 Days.

In 1878, another world-famous adventure work, “The 15-Year-Old Captain,” was published, the theme of which is racial discrimination- was continued in the next novel, “North vs. South,” which was published shortly after the end Civil War to the USA in 1887.

Jules Verne's life ended on April 24, 1905 in Amiens. The cause of death was diabetes. He left a legacy for his descendants numerous works, which even today can provide an exciting pastime.

Name: Jules Verne ( Jules Verne)

Age: 77 years old

Height: 165

Activity: geographer and writer, classicist adventure literature

Marital status: was married

Jules Verne: biography

UNESCO statistics claim that the books of the classic adventure genre, French writer and geographer Jules Gabriel Verne, are in second place in the number of translations after the works of the “grandmother of the detective.”

Jules Verne was born in 1828 in the city of Nantes, located at the mouth of the Loire and fifty kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean.

Jules Gabriel is the first-born in the Verne family. A year after his birth, a second son, Paul, appeared in the family, and 6 years later, with a difference of 2-3 years, sisters Anna, Matilda and Marie were born. The head of the family is second-generation lawyer Pierre Verne. The ancestors of Jules Verne's mother are Celts and Scots who moved to France in the 18th century.

During his childhood, Jules Verne’s range of hobbies was determined: the boy read voraciously fiction, preferring adventure stories and novels, and knew everything about ships, yachts and rafts. Jules shared his passion younger brother Paul. The love of the sea was instilled in the boys by their grandfather, a ship owner.

At the age of 9, Jules Verne was sent to a closed lyceum. After finishing the boarding school, the head of the family insisted that his eldest son enter a law school. The guy didn’t like jurisprudence, but he gave in to his father and passed the exams at the Paris Institute. A youthful love of literature and a new hobby - theater - greatly distracted the aspiring lawyer from lectures on law. Jules Verne disappeared into the theater backstage, did not miss a single premiere and began writing plays and librettos for operas.

The father, who was paying for his son’s education, became angry and stopped funding Jules. The young writer found himself on the brink of poverty. Supported a beginner colleague. On the stage of his theater, he staged a play based on the play of his 22-year-old colleague, “Broken Straws.”

To survive, the young writer worked as a secretary in a publishing house and tutored.

Literature

New page in creative biography Jules Verne appeared in 1851: the 23-year-old writer wrote and published his first story, “Drama in Mexico,” in the magazine. The undertaking turned out to be successful, and the inspired writer created a dozen new ones in the same vein. adventure stories, whose heroes find themselves in a cycle of amazing events in different corners planets.

From 1852 to 1854, Jules Verne worked at Lyric Theater" Dumas, then got a job as a stockbroker, but did not stop writing. From writing short stories, comedies and librettos, he moved on to creating novels.

Success came in the early 1860s: Jules Verne decided to write a series of novels, united under the title “Extraordinary Journeys.” The first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, appeared in 1863. The work was published by the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel in his “Magazine for Education and Leisure”. The same year the novel was translated into English.

In Russia translated from French the novel was published in 1864 under the title “Air Journey through Africa. Compiled from the notes of Dr. Fergusson by Julius Verne.”

A year later, the second novel in the series appeared, entitled “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” telling about a professor of mineralogy who found an ancient manuscript of an Icelandic alchemist. The encrypted document tells how to get into the earth's core through a passage in the volcano. The science-fiction plot of Jules Verne's work is based on the hypothesis, not completely rejected in the 19th century, that the earth is hollow.

The first novel tells about an expedition to North Pole. During the years of writing the novel, the pole was not open and the writer imagined it as an active volcano located in the center of the sea. The second work talks about man’s first “Lunar” journey and makes a number of predictions that have come true. The science fiction writer describes the devices that allowed his heroes to breathe in space. The principle of their operation is the same as in modern devices: air purification.

Two more predictions that came true were the use of aluminum in aerospace and the site of a prototype spaceport (“Gun Club”). According to the writer's plan, the projectile car from which the heroes went to the Moon is located in Florida.

In 1867, Jules Verne gave fans the novel “The Children of Captain Grant,” which was filmed twice in the Soviet Union. The first time was in 1936 by director Vladimir Vainshtok, the second time in 1986.

“The Children of Captain Grant” is the first part of a trilogy. Three years later, the novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” was published, and in 1874, “The Mysterious Island,” a Robinsonade novel. The first work tells the story of Captain Nemo, who plunged into the depths of the water on the Nautilus submarine. The idea for the novel was suggested to Jules Verne by a writer who was a fan of his work. The novel formed the basis of eight films, one of them, “Captain Nemo,” was filmed in the USSR.

In 1869, before writing the two parts of the trilogy, Jules Verne published a sequel to the science fiction novel “From the Earth to the Moon” - “Around the Moon”, the heroes of which are the same two Americans and a Frenchman.

Jules Verne presented the adventure novel “Around the World in 80 Days” in 1872. His heroes, the British aristocrat Fogg and the enterprising and savvy servant Passepartout, were so popular with readers that the story about the heroes’ journey was filmed three times and five animated series were made based on it in Australia, Poland, Spain and Japan. In the Soviet Union, there is a well-known cartoon produced by Australia directed by Leif Graham, which premiered during the school period. winter holidays in 1981.

In 1878, Jules Verne presented the story “The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain” about junior sailor Dick Sand, who was forced to take command of the whaling ship Pilgrim, whose crew died in a fight with a whale.

In the Soviet Union, two films were made based on the novel: in 1945, a black-and-white film by director Vasily Zhuravlev, “The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain,” and in 1986, “Captain of the Pilgrim,” by Andrei Prachenko, appeared, in which they starred, and.

In Jules Verne's later novels, fans of creativity saw the writer's latent fear of the rapid progress of science and a warning against using discoveries for inhumane purposes. These are the 1869 novel Flag of the Motherland and two novels written in the early 1900s: Master of the World and Extraordinary Adventures Barsak's expedition. Last piece completed by Jules Verne's son, Michel Verne.

The late novels of the French writer are less known than the early ones written in the 60s and 70s. Jules Verne was inspired for his works not in the quiet of his office, but while traveling. On the yacht “Saint-Michel” (that was the name of the novelist’s three ships), he sailed around the Mediterranean Sea, visited Lisbon, England and Scandinavia. On the Great Eastern he made a transatlantic cruise to America.

In 1884, Jules Verne visited the Mediterranean countries. This journey is the last in the life of the French writer.

The novelist wrote 66 novels, more than 20 stories and 30 plays. After his death, relatives, sorting through the archives, found many manuscripts that Jules Verne planned to use in writing future works. Readers saw the novel “Paris in the 20th Century” in 1994.

Personal life

My future wife– Honorine de Vian – Jules Verne met in the spring of 1856 in Amiens at a friend’s wedding. The flaring feeling was not hindered by Honorina’s two children from previous marriage(de Vian's first husband died).

In January next year the lovers got married. Honorine and her children moved to Paris, where Jules Verne settled and worked. Four years later, the couple had a son, Michel. The boy appeared when his father was traveling in the Mediterranean on the Saint-Michel.

Michel Jean Pierre Verne created a film company in 1912, on the basis of which he filmed five of his father’s novels.

The novelist’s grandson, Jean-Jules Verne, published a monograph about his famous grandfather in the 1970s, which he wrote for 40 years. It appeared in the Soviet Union in 1978.

Death

For the last twenty years of his life, Jules Verne lived in the Amiens house, where he dictated novels to his family. In the spring of 1886, the writer was wounded in the leg by his mentally ill nephew, the son of Paul Verne. I had to forget about traveling. Diabetes mellitus and, in the last two years, blindness were connected to the injury.

Jules Verne died in March 1905. In the archives of the prose writer beloved by millions, there remain 20 thousand notebooks in which he wrote down information from all branches of science.

A monument was erected at the novelist’s grave, which reads: “ To immortality and eternal youth».

• At the age of 11, Jules Verne was hired as a cabin boy on a ship and almost ran away to India.
• In his novel Paris in the Twentieth Century, Jules Verne predicted the advent of the fax, video communications, the electric chair and television. But the publisher returned the manuscript to Verne, calling him an “idiot.”
• Readers saw the novel “Paris in the 20th Century” thanks to the great-grandson of Jules Verne, Jean Verne. For half a century the work was considered family myth, but Jean, an opera tenor, found the manuscript in the family archive.
• In the novel “The Extraordinary Adventures of the Barsak Expedition,” Jules Verne predicted the variable thrust vector in airplanes.

• In “The Foundling of the Lost Cynthia,” the writer substantiated the need for the Northern Sea Route to be navigable in one navigation.
• Jules Verne did not predict the appearance of a submarine - in his time it already existed. But the Nautilus, captained by Captain Nemo, was superior even to 21st century submarines.
• The prose writer was mistaken in considering the core of the earth to be cold.
• In nine novels, Jules Verne described the events that unfold in Russia without ever visiting the country.

Verne Quotes

• “He knew that in life one inevitably has to, as they say, rub among people, and since friction slows down movement, he stayed away from everyone.”
• “Better a tiger on the plain than a snake in the long grass.”
• “Isn’t it true, if I don’t have a single flaw, then I will become an ordinary person!”
• “A true Englishman never jokes when it comes to something as serious as a bet.”
• “Smell is the soul of a flower.”
• “New Zealanders only eat people fried or smoked. They are well-bred people and great gourmets.”
• “Necessity is the best teacher in all cases of life.”
• “The fewer amenities, the fewer needs, and the fewer needs, the happier a person.”

Bibliography

• 1863 "Five Weeks in a Balloon"
• 1864 "Journey to the Center of the Earth"
• 1865 "The Voyage and Adventures of Captain Hatteras"
• 1867 “Children of Captain Grant. Travel around the world"
• 1869 "Around the Moon"
• 1869 "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"
• 1872 "Around the World in Eighty Days"
• 1874 "The Mysterious Island"
• 1878 "The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain"
• 1885 “Foundling from the dead “Cynthia”
• 1892 “Castle in the Carpathians”
• 1904 "Lord of the World"
• 1909 "The Shipwreck of the Jonathan"