Ox. No one knows where he comes from or who he is. He calls himself a doctor; he is not a professor like Lidenbrock in Journey to the Center of the Earth'40 Aronnax in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, or Palmyrin Rosette in Hector Servadac.41 Professors are reassuringly familiar by virtue of their daily contact with the students they help mold; a doctor is a far more independent and unaccountable being. Dr. Ox is unsettling, like a new incarnation of the evil who haunts The Tales of Hoffmann, the drama by Jules Barbier42 and Michel Carre,43 presented at l'Odeon44 in 1851 (the opera by Offenbach had not yet been written). In the same year, Verne collaborated with Carre to produce a play, Leonardo da Vnci, which later became Mona Lisa,45 with a similar underlying theme as in The Tales of Hoffmann-the necessity of choosing between art and love. Jules Verne said of Dr. Ox that he "escaped from a volume by Hoffmann." By Hoffmann? Or by Barbier and Carre? Or by Offenbach-his demonic and deadly Dr. Miracle? Offenbach's opera was created in Paris, February 10, 1881. The direct line from The Tales of Hoffmann to journey Through the Impossible is obvious; Offenbach's opera has five acts: prologue, first love, second love, third love, and epilogue. In Verne's play, Act I includes the prologue and the first exploration; Act II is the second exploration, and Act III is the third exploration and the epilogue. Thus we have Hoffmann's first love (Olympia, a mechanical doll) and George Hatteras's first exploration (to the center of the earth); Hoffmann's second love (Antonia, who dies while singing) and George's second exploration (under the oceans); Hoffmann's third love (Giulietta, who steals his shadow) and George's third exploration (to outer space). Both pieces end by highlighting the battle between good and evil, with the same choice for the hero-in Hoff Hann, between art and love; in journey Through the Impossible, between science and love.

Most of the characters of Journey Through the Impossible were already known to the spectators. The hero, George Hatteras, is the son of Captain Hatteras, who discovered the North Pole in Journey and Adventures of Captain Hatteras.46 Like the Verne novels, this play is a typical initiatory journey where George Hatteras discovers the center of the Earth, the underwater world, and the planet Altor. The journey is strenuous; George, faced with obstacles and difficulties, is subjected to evil forces that push him to journey farther, and to good forces that protect him from danger and keep him from the blasphemy of seeking to become godlike. The evil force is personified by Doctor Ox ("Doctor Ox"), without his colleague Ygene. The beneficent spirit, Volsius, first takes the identity of Otto Lidenbrock (Journey to the Center of the Earth), then of Captain Nemo (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea), and, at the end, of Michel Ardan (From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon47). Volsius tries to restrain George Hatteras from his journey, but Ox coerces the hero to conquer Earth in Act I, the seas in Act II, and space in Act III. George is accompanied in his travels by Eva, his fiancee (the love interest so important to Hollywood). For comic relief, Verne and d'Ennery added Tartelet, a teacher of dance and etiquette (based on Professor T. Artelet of The School of Robinsons,48 also known as Godfrey Morgan).

Tartelet (French for small tart) did not need time travel to jump from the novel into the play, since the former was published and the latter performed in 1882. The School of Robinsons was serialized from January to December 1882 in Hetzel's magazine for the French family, Magasin d'Education et de Recreation, and was made available as an illustrated book November 9, 1882, two weeks before journey Through the Impossible was first performed in Paris. With his friend Valdemar, Tartelet teaches good manners to George and Eva throughout the play, during travels to the center of the earth, to Atlantis, and to Altor-tal- ents very useful in such circumstances! To help the heroes get to Altor, Verne resurrected Impey Barbicane and J. T. Maston, president and secretary, respectively, of the Gun Club in Baltimore, which launched the bullet From the Earth to the Moon in 1865. However, the characters never reached the Moon. Likewise, having set his foot on the North Pole, Hatteras finds only emptiness, because the exact geographic pole is in the center of a volcano. The journey to the Center of the Earth does not fulfill its goal, and Nemo, Under the Sea, does not visit the deepest abyss on the floor of the ocean. Verne's astronauts are confined to circle the Moon on their voyage Around the Moon. The cannon paid for with The Five Hundred Million of the Begum does not destroy France-Ville, and the lovers don't see The Green Ray.49 At the end of his tour Around the World in Eighty Days,50 Fogg does win his wager, but only by way of another typically Vernian glitch.