12 The Week Junior• 14 Ma rch

All aboutJulesVerne

S

cience-fictionwriters telltales setins pace,on

distant planets,farint he fu ture or in alternative

realitieswhere anything is possible. Sciencefiction,

also knownassci-fi,isa type of storytelling inspired

by scienceand te chnology. Today, some of the most

famousexamples areDoctor Who,Star Warsand the

Marvel CinematicUniverse, but thereiso ne person

who perhapsdid morethanany other to makethe

genrewhatitistoday:JulesVerne. Theautho rdied

115years ago this month,but he continues to have

ahugeinfluence on sci-fi.With hitbookssuch as

Journey to theCentreofthe Earth,Twenty Thousand

Leagues Under the SeaandAround theWorld in Eighty

Days,Vernemad possible.

Early days

JulesVerne wasborn on8February1828 in the

French city of Nantes. From anearly age, he had a

fascination withexploration and discovery.Whenhe

wassix, his teacher,Madame Sambin, told him

stories about her husband, who disappeared while

travelling the world onaship 30 years before. She

told her class that hewaslikeRobinson Crusoe, a

fictionalcastaway who lived onadesert island.Verne

would later write stories about similar characters.

Howdid Verne becomeawri

In 1847,Verne wassent by hisfam

to study law ataunive rsit yinP aris

theFrench capital, but he preferre

write novels, poems and plays. Aft

graduating, herealised hewanted

to write adventurestories based

on scienceand technology.This

hadnever been done before, but

Verne wassurethatitwould be

asuccess. His first story,FiveWeeks

in aBalloon,was published in

September 1862. Hiscare er lasted

for morethan40years, during

which time he wrote morethan

60 gripping stories.

Byblendingadventurewithtechnology,JulesVernecreatedanewstyleofwriting.

ALAMY

·SCIENCE PHO

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LIBR

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EX SHUTTERSTOCK

The writer who sa

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Jule sVerne

Verne’s1865 book,From

theEarth to the Moon.