Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read Online Free
Author: Jules Verne
his experience showed him that despite his father’s wishes, he felt a true passion for writing. “There are serious studies to be done on the present genre of literature,” Verne wrote in a letter, “and especially on that of the future” (quoted in Evans, p. 17).
When he graduated from law school, he had to make a choice: either return to Nantes to take over his father’s law practice and lead what he saw as a comfortable but bloodless life, or remain in Paris to write. After years spent trying to convince his father of his commitment to the law, Verne took a new direction. Even while asking for his father’s continued economic support, Verne admitted he had no passion for law. “My dear father,” Verne wrote, “whether I do law for a couple of years or not, if both careers are pursued simultaneously, sooner or later one of them will destroy the other.... And in my opinion, the bar would not survive” (Evans, p. 17). He went so far as to warn his father that if forced to return to Nantes, he would ruin his father’s practice. Eventually his father agreed to let him stay in Paris to write.
By 1856, after five years spent trying unsuccessfully to make a living from writing—and five years’ begrudging economic support from his judgmental father—Verne started to doubt his prospects. “It is as if the moment I get an idea or launch any literary project, the idea or project at once goes wrong,” Verne wrote to his father. “If I write a play for a particular theater director, he moves elsewhere; if I think of a good title, three days later I see it on the billboards announcing someone else’s play; if I write an article, another appears on the same subject. Even if I discovered a new planet, I believe it would at once explode, just to prove me wrong” (quoted in Teeters, p. 45). Faced with failure, Verne indicated he might be ready to return to a professional life. “While I tend to my art, I am quite capable of devoting time and energy to another job,” he wrote in a letter home (quoted in Lottman, p. 69).
To complicate matters, Verne wanted to find a wife. “I want to marry, I must marry, I should marry,” he wrote in a letter home (Lottman, p. 67). “It’s the perfect time to get married, my dear mother, so I ask you to get to work. Find the way to present me as a good husband” (Lottman, p. 55). In order to attract a wife, Verne knew he needed to find steady employment and so, in 1856 when he met a wealthy, twenty-six-year-old widow named Honorine Morel, he chose a new career. Asking his father for seed money to invest in a stock brokerage firm, he proposed to Honorine, secured a job, and was soon married. The wedding ushered in another five years of hard work for Verne. In addition to supporting a family by buying low and selling high on the Paris stock market, he rose every morning at dawn to write for five hours before going to work. This period lasted until 1862, when Verne’s manuscript Five Weeks in a Balloon found its way into the hands of publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel and his successful career as a writer of scientific fiction began. “My friends, I bid you adieu,” Verne is reported to have said to his stock exchange friends. “I’ve had an idea ... an idea which should make me rich. I’ve just written a novel in a new style, truly my own. If it succeeds, it will be a gold mine. So, I’ll continue to write and write ...” (quoted in Evans, p. 21)
That, of course, is exactly what he did.
Major cultural forces contributed to Verne’s success. In 1850 a French law (Le Loi Farroux) declared that all scientific education in the nation’s secondary schools was to be controlled by the Catholic Church. The law had a devastating effect on two generations of French students. At a time when European and American scientists were discovering steam and electricity, as the phonograph and the telephone were created, while tram and railroad tracks were laid down the world over, the
When he graduated from law school, he had to make a choice: either return to Nantes to take over his father’s law practice and lead what he saw as a comfortable but bloodless life, or remain in Paris to write. After years spent trying to convince his father of his commitment to the law, Verne took a new direction. Even while asking for his father’s continued economic support, Verne admitted he had no passion for law. “My dear father,” Verne wrote, “whether I do law for a couple of years or not, if both careers are pursued simultaneously, sooner or later one of them will destroy the other.... And in my opinion, the bar would not survive” (Evans, p. 17). He went so far as to warn his father that if forced to return to Nantes, he would ruin his father’s practice. Eventually his father agreed to let him stay in Paris to write.
By 1856, after five years spent trying unsuccessfully to make a living from writing—and five years’ begrudging economic support from his judgmental father—Verne started to doubt his prospects. “It is as if the moment I get an idea or launch any literary project, the idea or project at once goes wrong,” Verne wrote to his father. “If I write a play for a particular theater director, he moves elsewhere; if I think of a good title, three days later I see it on the billboards announcing someone else’s play; if I write an article, another appears on the same subject. Even if I discovered a new planet, I believe it would at once explode, just to prove me wrong” (quoted in Teeters, p. 45). Faced with failure, Verne indicated he might be ready to return to a professional life. “While I tend to my art, I am quite capable of devoting time and energy to another job,” he wrote in a letter home (quoted in Lottman, p. 69).
To complicate matters, Verne wanted to find a wife. “I want to marry, I must marry, I should marry,” he wrote in a letter home (Lottman, p. 67). “It’s the perfect time to get married, my dear mother, so I ask you to get to work. Find the way to present me as a good husband” (Lottman, p. 55). In order to attract a wife, Verne knew he needed to find steady employment and so, in 1856 when he met a wealthy, twenty-six-year-old widow named Honorine Morel, he chose a new career. Asking his father for seed money to invest in a stock brokerage firm, he proposed to Honorine, secured a job, and was soon married. The wedding ushered in another five years of hard work for Verne. In addition to supporting a family by buying low and selling high on the Paris stock market, he rose every morning at dawn to write for five hours before going to work. This period lasted until 1862, when Verne’s manuscript Five Weeks in a Balloon found its way into the hands of publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel and his successful career as a writer of scientific fiction began. “My friends, I bid you adieu,” Verne is reported to have said to his stock exchange friends. “I’ve had an idea ... an idea which should make me rich. I’ve just written a novel in a new style, truly my own. If it succeeds, it will be a gold mine. So, I’ll continue to write and write ...” (quoted in Evans, p. 21)
That, of course, is exactly what he did.
Major cultural forces contributed to Verne’s success. In 1850 a French law (Le Loi Farroux) declared that all scientific education in the nation’s secondary schools was to be controlled by the Catholic Church. The law had a devastating effect on two generations of French students. At a time when European and American scientists were discovering steam and electricity, as the phonograph and the telephone were created, while tram and railroad tracks were laid down the world over, the
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