14 March 2020•The Week Junior 13

All aboutJul

the futu

Journey to theCentreofthe Earth

When Professor Lidenbrock finds out that thereisa

route to thecentreoftheEarth throughavolcano in

Iceland, he is determined toexploreithimself. During

the adventure, the professor,his nephew and their

Icelandic guide find prehistoric dinosaurs and ape-like

humans, but they have to fight to survive in order to

sharethevolcano’ssecrets.

ThreeofVern

mostfamous

Around theWorld in Eight

PerhapsVerne’smost popular

an Englishmancalled Phileas

around the globe in just 80 day

bet. He has plenty of adventure

his assistant JeanPassepartout

who believesFogg is on the run

Twenty ThousandLeagues Under the Sea

This book starts with scientist Professor Aronnax

joining anexpedition to findamysterious seamonster

spotted in thePacificOcean. It is laterrevealed that

the monster is actuallyahighly advanced submarine

called the Nautilus,controlled by Captain Nemo.Nemo

takes Arronax and his friends prisoner,but they’renot

too upset because they get to takepartinanincredible

journey through the world’soceans.

Thecrewencounter

giant mushrooms.

PhileasFogg

reachesIndia.

sVerne

s

les

Days

ork,this story follows

gg,who tries to travel

so that hecanwin a

along thewaywith

andMrFix,adetective

from thepolice.

Verne’sfirst bookwas

FiveWeeksinaBalloon.

The Nautilus

submarine.

Asuccessful career

Tobegin with,Verne wrote positive and optimistic

books. Many of these weretobehis most popular

creations, usually involving scientists orexplorers

embarking on adventures to unusual locations.

Although some includedfantastical elements –

dinosaurs surviving to the modern age, forexample

–they wereusually based in scientificfact, making

them believable. These happy stories weren’t to last.

As he got older,Verne became lessconfident in the

ideathat scienceand technologywerealways good

for the planet. His booksstarted to include more

scientists who used technology for their own –

sometimes evil–purposes.Verne died on 24 March

1905, but new bookscontinuedtobepublished until

1919. These stories werebased on ideasVernehad
      written about while hewasstill alive, but featured
      new characters and plots created by his son, Michel.

Verne’slegacy today

Even after his death,Verneremained one of the

world’smost popular authors. In the 20thcentury,his

booksweretranslatedinto morethan 140 languages

and several successful film versions werereleased.

His creations have beenrecognised as an inspiration

for many scientists and inventors. Many of the

futuristic ideas from his most popular bookshave

sincecome true–including electric submarines, news

broadcasts, holograms and videoconferencing. As

Verne oncewrote, “What one mancanimagine,

another will someday be able to achieve.”

An illustrationfromTwenty

ThousandLeagues Underthe Sea.