LITERARY BIOGRAPHY

JULES GABRIEL VERNE

When he was only twelve years old was working as a cabin boy on an ocean going ship.

He decided to venture himself into a trip to India to buy a necklace for his cousin Caroline who he was in love with; but his father intercepted the ship before it went to the sea and obliged him to promise not to travel again. He said he would travel only in his imagination. These words were fulfilled in a way his father would have never imagined; since this was the beginning of his career as a writer because he learned to escape into his own world of imagination which had no boundaries.

These feelings would show up in many of Verne`s works as an adult.

Jules Gabriel Verne is a great French novelist born on 1828, in Nantes, France who is consider to be the father of science fiction and also his style at writing has influenced many of the inventions which are very common seen nowadays. His first novels were not as successful as his latter’s because he was progressing through time improving his style at writing; therefore, this French novelist is an example of determination and success for new generations due to he cared a lot about what he really wanted.

He was a dreamer and followed his dreams without caring adversities based on reality due to the fact that he studied a lot to understand sciences; thus, when he mixed science with his imagination he created science fiction.

Owing to the friendship he made with French author Alexander Dumas the Elder (1802-1870) Verne`s first play Broken Straws, was produced with some success in 1850, from 1852 to 1855 he held steady and low playing, talking a position as a secretary of a Paris theater, the Thêâtre Lyrique.

He continued to write comedies and opperettas and began contributing short stories to a popular magazine, Le Musée des Familles.

During a visit to Amien´s, France, in May 1856, Verne met and fell in love with the widowed daughter of an army officer, Madame Morel, whom he married the following January. (notable biographies)

Verne´s next few books were immensely successful at that time and are still counted among the best he wrote. A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) describes the adventures of a party of explorers and scientists who descend the crater of an Icelandic volcano and discover an underground world. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1866) centers on an expedition to the North Pole and From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and its sequel, Round the Moon (1870). (notable biographies)

Verne wrote his two masterpieces when he was in his forties. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Other popular novels include The Mysterious Island (1875) and Michael Strogoff (1876).

He was a pioneer in science fiction since in his novel From the Earth to the Moon describes astronauts who traveled to the moon in a capsule sent into space from Florida, USA where NASA is located nowadays. Besides, the weightlessness people suffer in space, something that was difficult to prove and imagine at that time, nobody would have never imagined it would be a reality in the 20th century; he nearly predicted even the place in which it happened.

Most of his novels were not only about mysterious inventions such as aircrafts never seen before, but also about places which had never been explored before.

Since he got interested in writing, he was so determined following his dream without caring adversities based on reality. He was almost out of money after the decision he made of living by his own. Since he was sent by his father to study law, but he wanted to study literature and he privately did it while he was working in a theater with a very low salary.

He also established a rigorous timetable, rising at five o´clock in order to put in several hours researching and writing before beginning his day´s work something that caused him several diseases.

Jules Verne was a writer who has gone beyond time and space through his writing due to his sensibility and passion because his stories made people travel through many places around the world and live many adventures full of danger, fun, mystery, and imaginary characters.

He is an example of persistence since he decided to accomplish his dream which was to be a writer against all odds; his imagination broke barriers between time and space being that he wrote about things that inspired inventions which are very useful nowadays and at that time those things were only too much futuristic.

That is why he is considered the father of science fiction and continues fascinating people with those stories full of adventure.

“If I am not always what I ought to be, my characters will be what I should like to be.”

“Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real”

Jules Verne.-

By Carlos Alonso Melgar Turcios.