Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Hardbound - 2020)

During the year 1866, some ships spot a mysterious sea monster. The US government assembles an expedition in New York City to find and destroy the monster. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist and narrator of the story, receives an invitation to join the expedition which he accepts. Canadian whaler and master harpoonist Ned Land and Aronnax’s manservant Conseil are also brought aboard.

The expedition departs Brooklyn aboard the US Navy frigate Abraham Lincoln and travels into the Pacific Ocean. After a long search, the ship finds the monster and then attacks the beast, which damages the ship’s rudder. The three men find themselves on top of the mysterious creature, which is actually a submarine vessel. They are taken on board and placed in a cell. They meet Captain Nemo, the commander of the vessel, the Nautilus. He tells them they can stay on board the ship and enjoy freedom so long as they return to the cell if asked.

Captain Nemo treats the men, especially Aronnax, very well. They spend their time observing sea life through the windows. Aronnax studies and writes about everything he sees. The men experience many exciting adventures. They hunt in underwater forests, visit an island with angry natives, visit the lost city of Atlantis, and fish for giant pearls. However, they also encounter some distressing events.

On a voyage to the South Pole, the Nautilus becomes stuck in the ice. Everyone is asked to take turns trying to break a hole in the ice so the vessel can get through. The ship almost runs out of its oxygen supply and the men grow tired and light headed. However, they escape just in time.

One night, Aronnax, Conseil and Land plan a rash escape. They realize to their dismay that they are heading toward a giant whirlpool, but amazingly, they emerge safely in a small dinghy. They awake in the hut of a fisherman. At the end of the story, Aronnax is waiting for his return to France and rewriting his memoirs of his journey under the sea.

Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905), a French novelist, poet, and playwright, is best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction.

He was trained to follow in his father’s profession of a lawyer, but quit it early in life to write for magazines and the stage. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages Extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days.

Verne is considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. He has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking between the English-language writers Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare.

Verne also wrote many plays, poems, song texts, operetta libretti, and short stories, as well as a variety of essays and miscellaneous non-fiction.

After his debut under Hetzel, Verne was enthusiastically received in France by writers and scientists alike, with George Sand and Théophile Gautier among his earliest admirers.

Translation of his novels began in 1869 with William Lackland’s translation of Five Weeks in a Balloon, and continued steadily through Verne’s lifetime, with publishers hiring translators to put his most lucrative titles into English-language print. Verne, like H.G. Wells, is frequently cited as one of the founders of the genre of science fiction, and his profound influence on its development is indisputable.