Jules Verne: Biography Of The Creator Of The Science Fiction Novel
Who has not read Jules Verne or, at least, heard of him? The French writer is among the most read and among the most translated authors in the world, as his work has delighted generations of young people (and not so young) and has allowed them to travel with their imagination not only to remote places on the planet, but also to the future itself.
And Verne was a true visionary who predicted many of the advances of modernity; among them, the submarine, trips to the moon and helicopters, not to mention the fax and television, which he spoke about in his posthumous work Paris, 20th Century, an almost unknown work that was published in 1994.
Join us on a journey through the life of this science fiction novel writer, the true father of the genre: Jules Verne.
Brief biography of Jules Verne, the father of the science fiction novel
His works were popular in their time and enjoyed incredible success. The public was truly fascinated by the adventures he narrated in his stories which, as was customary in the 19th century, were published in serials and later published in book format. But the great monster of science fiction and adventure literature was not always oriented towards writing; In fact, his first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was published when Verne was already thirty-three years old.
Follow family tradition
It is quite common in the biographies of artists and writers to find significant conflicts with parents, especially the father, the head of the family at the time. The case of Jules Verne is no different. His father was a very well-off Nantes lawyer who, of course (and as is often the case), wanted his first-born son to continue the tradition. To this end, A very young twenty-year-old Verne arrived in Paris in 1848 to study law
And it’s not that Verne was the typical obedient and submissive son. Rather it was quite the opposite. In 1839, when he was only eleven years old, the boy had tried to enroll on a ship that was leaving for India with the very romantic objective of bringing his cousin, with whom he was in love, a coral necklace. The father found out about the project and managed to thwart the escape just in time, although the lashes he gave to “his rebellious son” deeply marked the young man. He never again rose up against the rules, and obediently went to Paris to fulfill the dream of his father.
But the Paris to which Jules Verne arrived was in full swing. That same year the famous Revolution of 1848 took place, which managed to overthrow the monarchy and establish the Second French Republic. The republican dream would be short-lived, as in 1852, Napoleon III proclaimed himself emperor in an attempt to emulate his relative, Napoleon I.
That Paris of 1848 is not only effervescent in political matters, but also intellectual and literary. Fascinated by this, Jules Verne drops by the gatherings of Parisian cafes, where the great monsters of letters swarm.
One night, when going down some stairs, suddenly bumps into Alexandre Dumas, an established author who has touched the sky of fame with his recent The Three Musketeers That somewhat shady meeting (request for a duel in between) is the prelude to a great friendship, in which Dumas would act as the young Verne’s literary tutor.
In those years, Jules Verne dreams of the possibility of writing plays. Dumas helps him and puts some of the aspiring writer’s works on the poster of the theaters he owns, although without any success. It seems that Verne was not born to be a playwright. Disheartened, the law student returns to concentrating on his career, which he finally manages to move forward However, he does not want to be a lawyer. He wants, above all, to write.
A declared misogynist
In the meantime, and despite not being liked by his parents, Julio has married Honorine du Fraysne de Viane, a very young widow with whom he has suddenly fallen in love. But the marriage turns out to be a failure; Soon, the restless Verne realizes that his wife is nothing more than a superficial lady incapable of supporting him in his intellectual concerns and that, furthermore, she is penniless. Even so, the marriage has Michel, her only son, who is joined by the two daughters that Honorine had with her first husband.
Marriage is an open “betrayal” of the group in which Verne is a member, known as The Eleven Without a Woman, an intellectual “institution” that openly excludes women and which is reflected in the London Reform Club that Phileas Fogg frequents in Around the World in 80 Days.
This declared misogyny of Verne is perhaps the darkest part of his biography. They say that he started after the rejection of Caroline, the cousin for whom he tried to travel to India, that, when he was already seventeen years old, she married another. Be that as it may, Verne’s editor, Hetzel, had to insist on numerous occasions that female figures appear in his novels Despite this, these remain rare.
So, we have Verne in the early 1860s, unhappily married, with a newborn son and two daughters from his wife’s previous marriage. In those years the future writer was encouraged to invest in the stock market, for which he asked his father for the not inconsiderable amount of 50,000 francs. Reluctantly, Pierre Gabriel Verne agrees, and thanks to some wise investments Julio is able to live with some comfort for a while.
However, he wants to write. Once his theatrical adventure is over, he decides to enter the scientific world, which awakens so much passion in him. The central years of the 19th century are years of scientific and technological advances that, at first, are a hope for humanity. Or at least that’s how Verne sees it, as he passionately devotes himself to the study of these discoveries. He is convinced that it is through technology that humanity will be able to advance towards a better world; Of course, it is essential not to stray from the path of goodness, otherwise, everything will turn into black chaos.
In 1863 what would be his first novel appeared, Five weeks in a balloon, which, as usual, has been published first in installments. The editor is Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814-1886), who, in addition to being a firm professional supporter for Verne’s career, will also be his great friend. Seeing the potential of the writer, and after the enormous success of Five weeks in a balloon, Hetze offers Verne an extraordinary contract : 20 years of collaboration in your magazine, Magasin d’Éducation et de Récréationwith an annual salary of… 20,000 francs!
This is the great opportunity that Verne was waiting for; He and he will never deviate from the literary path again. In the following years, authentic public successes appear, one after another, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the moonfrom 1865 (which was so widely accepted that the author made a second part in 1870) or 20,000 Leagues Under the Seawhich was released in 1870 and was the second part of an acclaimed trilogy about nautical travel and marine (and underwater) adventures.
The dark years
Although Jules Verne is especially known for his “science novels”, as he himself called them (and which are a prelude to later science fiction stories), We must not forget the author’s less scientific works either Among them stand out Michael Strogoff (1876), which narrates the adventures of the Russian tsar’s courier, who must cross the entire country invaded by the Tatars, and Around the World in 80 Days (1873), probably his best-known work, where we find an ironic and taciturn Phileas Fogg who, for many critics, is a reflection of Verne himself.
The beginning of the 1880s was a period of profound pessimism, partly marked by his illnesses (he suffered from facial paralysis, which occurred when he worked too much, and diabetes, which ultimately ended his life) and, on the other hand, , for the sad events that he had to experience. First his mother, Sophie, dies. Then it’s Honorine’s turn, his wife. His dear friend and editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, died in 1886 and, that same year, Verne suffered an unfortunate accident: his nephew Gaston, probably insane, shot him, destroying his left leg and causing him to limp. that will no longer be recovered.
In addition to the terrible vicissitudes that he experienced in those “dark years,” The faith that Verne has always placed in science is shattered The world is heading towards a war, in which technology, the one that was to save humanity, will have a great role. The writer’s mood darkens; In his last works you can see the deep pessimism into which he falls in the final years of his life. The last novels he wrote, which were published posthumously, show a world destroyed by human madness, a terrible premonition with which the great master of science fiction signs his literary testament.
Jules Verne dies in Amiens, a city to which he had retired in 1872 and where, in his mature years, he had participated in municipal politics. He is on March 24, 1905. Devastated by diabetes, which has damaged his sight and some organs, he takes the last breath of him, the great visionary of literature. Currently, almost all of his stories have come true; Let’s hope that his literary testament, that Eternal Adam published in 1910 that tells us about a great world catastrophe, is not just another one on the list.
