Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth. (A Journey To The Center Of The Earth)
Today marks the 187th anniversary of Jules Verne’s birth. I’m republishing this in his honor.
Believe it or not, Jules Verne (1828-1905) graduated from law school, but decided not to practice, then took up playwriting, but never made a living from it. By age 29, he gave up the arts and became a stockbroker.
Yet today we know him as the author of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, A Journey To The Centre Of The Earth and Around The World In 80 Days (links to free books).
How did Verne transform himself from failed playwright to stockbroker to father of science fiction?
Beautiful Nantes in the 1890s
Operas and Stocks
Jules Gabriel Verne was born in the beautiful Loire River town of Nantes, France. From the window of his family’s summer house, he watched schooners and clipper ships arrive from their exotic ports of call, which gave him a life-long yearning for faraway places.
His father, Pierre, was a wealthy lawyer who wanted Verne to follow in his footsteps. Jules left for Paris at 19 to study law.
But he fell in with an artsy uncle who introduced him to Paris’s theaters and literary salons. Verne met Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (author of The Three Musketeers), who encouraged him to write. Dumas even premiered Verne’s first play at the Lyric Theatre, which he owned.
Verne graduated from law school at 22 and informed his father he had no intention of practicing. Pierre promptly cut off his allowance.
Dumas hired Verne as the Lyric’s secretary for a nominal wage. For the next eight years, Verne wrote almost two dozen plays and operettas. Only a few were produced and none made him enough money to live on.
At 29, he fell in love with Honorine de Viane, a young widow. They wanted to marry, but he couldn’t support her. So Honorine’s brother got Verne a job as a stockbroker and the two wed.
Honorine encouraged her husband to continue writing. Verne rose at 5 am and wrote for five hours most days before going to the exchange. Burnt out on theater, he started experimenting with different forms and genres.
At age 35, Verne met Victor Hugo’s publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Hetzel published Verne’s story “Five Weeks In A Balloon.” It didn’t do well, but Hetzel loved the concept.
Hertzel and Verne then conceived a whole series of “Voyages Extraordinaires.” Hetzel contracted Verne to write two stories a year, and guided him toward more popular offerings. From their 20-year collaboration came our most-beloved early science fiction and fantasy stories.
Fame and Tragedy
By the time Verne turned 43, he was a wealthy man and a chevalier (knight) of the Legion of Honor. He’d just published 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea in two volumes.
But his life took a tragic turn at the height of his success. His father died the same year. The two were never reconciled.
Verne and Honorine’s only son, Michel, broke their hearts. At 19, Michel eloped with an older actress, then abandoned her for an underage girl. One year, Verne cleared Michel’s gambling debts to the tune of U.S. $60,000 in today’s currency.
When Verne was 58, his paranoid nephew Gaston burst into his room waving a gun, shouting that someone was chasing him. Although Verne had always been kind to Gaston and assured him that was not the case, Gaston shot him in the leg. The wound never healed, and he limped for the rest of his life. The Verne family hid the incident from the press and finally had Gaston committed.
Pierre-Jules Hetzel passed away a week after the shooting.Verne lost both a publisher and a dear friend. But Verne and his son reconciled through these tragedies, and even collaborated on a few projects.
Verne wrote prolifically until his death at age 77, and Michel finished several of his novels posthumously.
Science and Fiction
Most people regard Verne as an astonishing visionary. Just how many of our modern marvels did he foresee?
National Geographic summarizes 8 Jules Verne Inventions That Came True. They include
- electric submarines
- newscasts
- solar sails
- lunar modules
- videoconferencing
But Rosalind Williams, historian of technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, doesn’t find Verne’s prophecies so revolutionary:
He predicted a lot of things that have happened, but that’s because he was reading a lot and talking with people and he knew what was going on in the world around him, so why should we be surprised?
It wasn’t magic. He was just paying attention to things.
Jules Verne
In 1989, Verne’s great-grandson discovered a lost manuscript entitled Paris In The 20th Century.
The story describes fax machines, global communications, high-speed trains, cars powered by gasoline, and skyscrapers made of glass and steel. But, according to Publisher’s Weekly, “…as the book’s protagonist discovers, not even the most talented poet can find a place for himself unless he’s willing to produce odes to blast furnaces or locomotives.”
Paris In The 20th Century was Verne’s second novel, but Hetzel rejected it as too dark. He published Journey To The Center Of The Earth instead, and ironically steered Verne toward offerings that would appeal to 19th-century masses.
In his 20s, Jules Verne broke away from his bourgeois upbringing and spent ten years following his passion for the theater. In his 30s, he became a stockbroker to support his family, but never abandoned his love of drama and storytelling.
His path to later blooming was a series of stops and starts and useful mistakes, which little by little lead to the truth.
Jules Verne’s Lessons for Late Bloomers
The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last moment. (Around The World In Eighty Days)
- Verne reminds us to keep the fire alive, even while duty calls, by paying attention and practicing daily. You never know when that chance will come!
- Later blooming is a spiral process, not a linear one. What useful mistake have you made that lead to the next level?
Sources
- Jules Verne FAQ
- The UnMuseum
- The Works of Jules Verne: all 85 listed with short descriptions
- Much of Jules Verne’s work is in the public domain. Read him at Project Gutenberg or through Amazon.
- The opening image is Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea illustrated by N.C. Wyeth.