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JULES VERNE
The French novelist, Jules Verne, achieved great popularity by combining adventure, popular science and an audacious imagination in a highly readable and enjoyable form. He was born on the Ile Feydeau in Nantes on 8 February 1828, the eldest of five children. His father was a prosperous lawyer while his mother, Sophie, came from a military family. He attended school in Nantes, passing his baccalaureate in 1846, and studied law in Paris from 1847 until graduating in 1849. He took up writing in his early twenties. His first creative efforts were directed to opera libretti and he collaborated on this on several occasions with Dumas fils. He married a young widow, Honorine de Viane, on 10 January 1857. Five Weeks in a Balloon was published in 1862 and was his first successful work of fiction. This was followed by Voyage to the Centre of the Earth in 1864, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea in 1869, and Around the World in Eighty Days in 1873. His genius lay in anticipating scientific invention and discovery without indulging in fantastic exaggeration. This ensured understanding in those reading his works as they were published and, for later generations, an appreciation of how his ideas rested on practical observation and scientific evolution. This gift was allied to great literary ability and he is widely acknowledged as the father of science fiction. Jules Verne died on 24 March 1905 and is buried at Amiens where he had lived for many years as a prominent citizen.
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