His father, Pierre, was a prominent lawyer, and his mother, Sophie, was from a successful ship-building family. Despite his father’s wish that he pursue law, young Jules was fascinated by the sea and all things foreign and adventurous. Legend holds that at age eleven he ran away from school to work aboard a ship bound for the West Indies but was caught by his father shortly after leaving port.

Jules developed an abiding love of science and language from a young age. He studied geology, Latin, and Greek in secondary school, and frequently visited factories, where he observed the workings of industrial machines. These visits likely inspired his desire for scientific plausibility in his writing and perhaps informed his depictions of the submarine Nautilus and the other seemingly fantastical inventions he described.

After completing secondary school, Jules studied law in Paris, as his father had before him. However, during the two years he spent earning his degree, he developed more consuming interests. Through family connections, he entered Parisian literary circles and met many of the distinguished writers of the day. Inspired in particular by novelists Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (father and son), Verne began writing his own works. His poetry, plays, and short fiction achieved moderate success, and in 1852 he became secretary of the Theatre lyrique. dow with two

In 1857 he married Honorine Morel, a young widow with two children. Seeking greater financial security, he took a position as a stockbroker with the Paris firm Eggly and Company. However, he reserved his mornings for writing. Baudelaire’s recently published French translation of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, as well as the days Verne spent researching points of science in the library, inspired him to write a new sort of novel: the roman scientifique. His first such novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was an immediate success and earned him a publishing contract with the important editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel.

For the rest of his life, Verne published an average of two novels a year; the fifty-four volumes published during his lifetime, collectively known as Voyages Extraordinaires, include his best-known works, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in Eighty Days, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

In 1872 Verne settled in Amiens with his family. During the next several years he traveled extensively on his yachts, visiting such locales as North Africa, Gibraltar, Scotland, and Ireland. In 1886 Verne’s mentally ill nephew shot him in the leg, and the author was lame thereafter. This incident, as well as the tumultuous political climate in Europe, marked a change in Verne’s perspective on science, exploration, and industry. Although not as popular as his early novels, Verne’s later works are in many ways as prescient. Touching on such subjects as the ill effects of the oil industry, the negative influence of missionaries in the South Seas, and the extinction of animal species, they speak to concerns that remain urgent in our own time.

Verne continued writing actively throughout his life, despite failing health, the loss of family members, and financial troubles. At his death in 1905 his desk drawers contained the manuscripts of several new novels. Jules Verne is buried in the Madeleine Cemetery in Amiens.

The World of Jules Verne and Journey to the Center of the Earth

1828 Jules Gabriel Verne is born in the port city of Nantes, France, the first of the five children who will be born to Pierre and Sophie Allotte Verne. His father, an attorney, will encourage young Jules to pursue a career in law. His mother, from a ship-building family, instills in him a love of the sea.
1831 Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) is published.
1833 George Sand’s novel Lélia is published by the well-known publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, who later will publish Verne’s novels.
1834 Jules begins attending secondary school. During his years at school, he excels in geology, Latin, and Greek. Also greatly interested in machinery, he makes frequent visits to nearby factories.
1839 It is said that the adventurous boy tries to run away to sea aboard a ship bound for the West Indies but is apprehended by his father before reaching open waters.
1843 Tahiti becomes a French protectorate.
1844 Alexandre Dumas’s Le Comte de Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo) is published.
1847 Jules begins studying law in Paris; he will receive his degree in two years. In Paris, family friends introduce him to some of France’s most distinguished writers, including Victor Hugo. Jules begins writing to supplement his meager allowance . Several of his plays are well received in theaters; his fiction appears in the Parisian magazine Musée des familles.
1852 Louis-Napoleon becomes emperor of France as Napoleon III. Novelists Alexandre Dumas (père and fils) secure Verne a position as secretary of the Theatre lyrique.
1853 French administrator Georges- Eugène Haussmann begins alterations and municipal improvements in Paris, including the construction of the wide boulevards that distinguish the city to this day. The Crimean War begins, pitting Russia against France, England, and the Ottoman Turks.
1854 French poet Charles Baudelaire’s translation of the works of Edgar Allan Poe captivates Verne and initiates his lifelong admiration of the American author.
1857 Verne marries the widow Honorine de Viane Morel, whom he had met the previous year. Quitting his position at the Théâtre lyrique, he embarks on a career as a stockbroker at Eggly and Company, although he continues to devote his mornings to writing.