At the time when our last voyage is beginning to date and the next one is unfortunately no longer on the agenda, some great classics fortunately allow us to travel from his sofa. The opportunity to dust off the books in his library or to order some ebooks on the Internet to pass the time while respecting the confinement. Le Petit Futé therefore offers you a dive into the works of authors who have made us travel. After following in the footsteps of the late Albert Uderzo in Gaul, as in the rest of the world, we now give way to the second author in our series: Jules Verne. This visionary took his inventions to the four corners of the globe, and even beyond, in his extraordinary novels of anticipation.
America, cradle of adventures
We will start by opening one of the most famous opus of the "Extraordinary Journeys" series: From the Earth to the Moon. Published in 1865, this novel of anticipation stages the project of the members of the Gun Club of Baltimore in the United States. Its president Impey Barbicane and his acolytes attempt to send a huge shell to the moon, with French explorer Michel Ardan and Captain Nicholl, a scientist from Philadelphia, among others, on board. Entirely carried out on American territory, the action takes us to Baltimore on the East Coast, Cambridge in Massachusetts, Tampa in Florida and the Rocky Mountains. Before, of course, the great departure to the moon. This novel will also have a huge impact, as it will be adapted many times on the big screen, notably with Georges Méliès' Voyage dans la Lune (the first science fiction film, released in 1902). Finally, the attraction of Disneyland Paris Space Mountain: from the Earth to the Moon was freely inspired by Jules Verne's novel and the work of Méliès.
In L'Île mystérieuse, the story takes place while the Civil War is still raging in North America. As five prisoners flee the city of Richmond, the capital of Virginia, in a gas balloon, they are caught in a storm and think their last hour has come. Finally, they land on the coast of Lincoln Island, a fictitious but real land in the Lynn Canal in Alaska.
Europe, from West to East
On the Old Continent, the famous novel Journey to the Center of the Earth recounts the adventures of a German scientist who, with the help of an ancient manuscript written in the runic alphabet, plans with two companions a journey into the bowels of the Earth. A journey that will begin in an extinct Icelandic volcano, the Sneffels (the Snæfellsjökull in reality). And before they reach it, our adventurers will have (already) completed a long journey from Hamburg to Kiel, then across Denmark, past Norway, past the Faroe Islands and on to Reykjavik. A prelude to their incredible expedition to the centre of the Earth.
Then the famous novel Michel Strogoff takes us further east for an extraordinary journey across the Russian steppe. Michel Strogoff, the courier of the Tsar of Russia Alexander II, has the mission to reach Irkutsk, capital of Eastern Siberia, from Moscow to warn the Tsar's brother of the arrival of the Tartar hordes to invade Siberia. An adventure that will last three months and punctuated by many twists and turns for Michel Strogoff alongside the beautiful Nadia and the journalists Blount and Jolivet
From the African coast to the heart of China
Jules Verne will also tell the story of adventures in the heart of Africa in Five Weeks in the Ball. This is the first issue of the "Extraordinary Journeys" collection that made the Nantes-based writer famous. Published in 1863, Five Weeks in a Balloon tells the adventures of Doctor Samuel Fergusson, scientist and explorer, and his companions on the African continent. Their journey begins in Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, then they fly over Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Agadez in Niger, Timbuktu, Djenné and Segou in Mali and finally Saint-Louis, a French colony (now part of Senegal) on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. A crossing of Africa from East to West, therefore, which offers readers a discovery of an African continent still largely unknown at the time. And it is after the publication of this story that Jules Verne will definitely become famous
After Africa, Asia for this novelist who is a decidedly great traveller. In Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine, Jules Verne takes us on a great adventure in the heart of the Middle Kingdom
Around the world... in 80 days..
And what then of the masterpiece Around the World in Eighty Days? This is a world-famous epic in which the gentleman Phileas Fogg makes the crazy bet of crossing the planet in less than three months. In the midst of the transformation of the world at the time of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, this is a fascinating story that highlights the new means of transport of the time. In a train or on a steamboat, via the opening of the Suez Canal in particular, we are embarked on a mythical epic.
From the bottom of the oceans to the heart of space
Finally, Jules Verne, not content to have made us travel to the four corners of the planet, is going to take us to discover mysterious lands. First, we will dive under the oceans in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, one of the most translated books in the world. In this best-seller, many ships are sent to the bottom and the North American government asks scientist Pierre Aronnax, with his servant and Quebec harpooner Ned Land, to solve the mystery by travelling on the bottom of the seas. An adventure that will introduce us to the famous Nemo, captain of the Nautilus, and will take us from the mystical and mythical Atlantis to the distant islands of the Pacific.
To conclude this episode on the adventures of Jules Verne, how can we not evoke the continuation of the first novel we opened From the Earth to the Moon? Around the Moon, as its name suggests, tells the story of the arrival of the three companions towards the celestial object. If they were to initially land on the Moon, they would be trapped in its orbit and would have to redouble their efforts and mischief to return to the Earth.
