Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Thoroughly researched, accurate, scholarly and engaging biography of Verne
William Butcher is probably the world's foremost scholarly authority on the life and literature of the French writer Jules Verne. Having written numerous articles and monographs on the life and literary output of the prodigious and often under-estimated and misunderstood French novelist, over many years, and having retranslated some of the best-known Verne novels such as 'Around the world in eighty days' in the last ten years or so, few are more qualified than Butcher to produce this detailed insight into Verne's life.

Butcher systematically demolishes the many misperceptions of Verne's life and of the quality of his writings. He corrects the errors of previous biographies and of previous truncated and erroneous translations of Verne's novels, and brings to light some hitherto undetected subtexts in Verne's works, notably the degree of sexual allusion and the ingenious narrative structures. Butcher highlights the way in which Verne's lifetime publisher, Hetzel, expurgated many of Verne's works prior to publication, thus denaturing, tragically, much of their literary worth: to remedy this situation somewhat, Butcher's scholarship is unique in having gone back to the original manuscripts in order to reveal the unpublished, true genius of Jules Verne's themes and in order to reinterpret his novels.

Butcher's meticulous research brings the reader right into the intimate spaces inhabited by Verne from childhood through to old age, and though his style is rigorously academic, he sometimes recounts episodes and physical surroundings in an almost novelistic fashion. This makes the reader's vantage point, as a fly on the wall observer of Verne's journeys through life, particularly close, realistic, intimate and fascinating.

What has most struck me about this biography is the seemingly bittersweet nature of Verne's life, in which his success and happiness was at all times tempered with sadness, disappointment and even tragedy. The iconic French novelist is revealed, by Butcher, in all his humanity: this biography brings Verne to life with extraordinary vividness and Butcher's knowledge and writing skills help us to empathise with Verne and to admire him.

As I am currently doing doctoral research on translations of Verne, this biography is proving to be an indispensable reference. In sum, I wholeheartedly recommend this text to a wide audience of readers, not merely scholars of Verne, but to anyone and everyone who has ever enjoyed Verne's works and wants to learn about the man behind the iconic novels and films. Butcher deservedly subtitles this tome the 'Definitive Biography'.

The Verne We Never Knew(But Now There's No Excuse!)
"One of the best storytellers that ever lived" is how Jules Verne is described by Arthur C. Clarke, no mean storyteller himself. He's right, although that will surprise anyone who knows Verne only by way of the rotten translations that have flooded the American and British markets in the past.

Mercifully, the situation is changing. Clarke's statement is a truism to readers who know any of the fine recent English renderings, e.g. those by William Butcher, Stanley Kravitz, Walter James Miller, Frederick Walter, or Jordan Stump, or those edited by Arthur Evans.

But with the publication of this biography, still more surprises emerge. It seems that Verne himself and the life he led are in many spots just about as gripping as his stories are. Indeed, it is almost incredible that we didn't know that until recently. Why the hell not?

Well, folks, it's like this: until recently, there was precious little way for the English-reading world to appreciate Verne, because most of the translations of his novels were so bad (often truncating the texts, changing the names of characters, censoring political content, and just plain mistranslating), and most of the biographical material on their author was so formulaic and just plain dull, that it has been simply impossible for Brits and Yanks to take him seriously on the basis of what was available.

But to repeat myself, the newer translations and Butcher's biography are the hopeful beginning of a new era.

Verne emerges from Butcher's biography as a person with hangups, to say the least: an abused child, a man uncertain about his sexuality (bisexual, it seems on the evidence), a seriously depressed ultra-loner, a talented liar and plagiarist, a right-wing anti-semitic extremist who nevertheless harbored anarchist and communist sympathies, the father of a very talented writer whom he imprisoned as insane, and a doting uncle whose favorite nephew tried to murder him. On the other hand, we also have in Verne a man who was as skilful at celebrating the human appetite for adventure, achievement, experimentation and discovery as any writer in any age, and who could write classics in conditions that one would expect to immobilize him with sadness. And perhaps his most awesome achievement was to produce his greatest works under the scrutiny of a clueless editor (his name was Jules Hetzel) who repeatedly forced him to make gratuitious changes in his writings, changes which often warped his plots and absurdly forced his heroes and villains to act out of character. By the same token, Butcher's greatest achievement has been his exhaustive study of the original manuscripts, so that he has been able to show Verne's intentions independently of their censorship by Hetzel. The result will delight and astound, for Verne's conceptions are almost universally superior to the crap imposed on him by his publisher.

As in any scholarly work, one can nitpick. A reviewer elsewhere does not scruple to mention Butcher's error on p. 188, where the abolitionist John Brown is described as "murdered in 1856". Well, yes, that's a mistake, and the same page contains a reference to "the George Sand", and there may be other trivial errors for all I know. So what? I personally wouldn't care if Butcher were caught saying "aint". If anyone is going to challenge Butcher's study, I would rather they challenged his conclusions, if only for the sake of argument.

For example: Is Butcher correct in his belief, stated and argued more than once in his book, that Verne was emphatically NOT a writer of science fiction, but rather a writer of adventure stories? There will be many who will disagree with this genre assignment, and will continue to regard Verne as "the father of science fiction".

I look forward to this friendly argument, which will help us all to decide what KIND of influence Verne's has been. Errors, schmerrors. Let's get into the meat of things.

In this respect as in others, Jules Verne: The Definitive Biography opens a box of goodies whose key should have been jimmied long ago. No one will finish reading this book and retain the patronizing view of Jules Verne that has plagued American and British literary studies. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Herbert R. Lottman's biography of Jules Verne dwells on the sources of the pioneering author's creative impulses, drawing a portrait of a complicated man, driven by an insatiable wanderlust that led him to uproot his staid life in Paris, to move to the hinterlands where he recreated himself as a writer of captivating stories of science fiction, a genre he virtually created. Drawing from Verne's previously unpublished correspondence, Lottman provides revealing details about Verne's life, his worries for his troubled son Michel, and the relationship with his domineering publisher and editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel, all of which provides new insight into Verne and his written work. Perhaps most fascinating is the close relationship between the success of Verne's work and the innovative marketing of his novels by Hetzel, showing that Verne was not only creating new genres, but also blazing trails as a literary media star.Book Description
Here Jules Verne, the pioneer of the science fiction genre and the uncannily accurate forecaster of twentieth-century invention, is revealed in an entirely new light. Lottman explores the dark, private side of the visionary who created some of the most imaginative tales of space, sea, and air travel ever written. Verne viewed the future with a mixture of awe and dread. He predicted a world filled with both technological achievements and monstrosities: cars, fax machines, computers, and the electric chair. Verne simultaneously marveled at the inventions and despaired at what drove people to create them.It is this elusive, disillusioned aspect of Verne that is captured here.This is the most complete picture of Jules Verne yet: his work, family, hidden cynicism and dark passions.

"An intrepid search of the dark passions that drove this visionary science fiction pioneer, Lottman gives us a biography as remarkable as Verne himself." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires turned Ordinary
Several books on Jules Verne (1828-1905) have been translated from French into English, including biographies by Verne's cousin (1928) and grandson (1976), and a study of the political themes in Verne's novels by Jean Chesneaux (1972).Now, for the first time, the reverse has occurred: a book on Jules Verne originally written in English has been translated into his native language. Sadly, Herbert R. Lottman's new biography of Verne, also published in France (in a translation by Marianne Véron), is not worthy of holding such a distinctive position in Vernestudies.Although described by St. Martin's Press on the dust jacket as the first "modern biography" of Verne ever written, there is a long tradition of writing about the author, not only in French, but in English as well.
Lottman offers little literary analysis of Verne's works, and that which is present is cursory and often ill-considered. While the details of Verne's life are more developed, they are frequently marred by the author's determination to indulge in amateur Freudian analysis and to draw often highly questionable conclusions from his biographical data.
Generally, Lottman's discussion of Verne's writing is shallow, seldom extending beyond simple plot analysis. There is little evidence that Lottman has personally studied Verne's more than sixty novels and many additional short stories, plays, non-fiction, speeches, and poems.Approaching Verne's books in chronological order, Lottman makes little effort to examine the links between the works or the broader themes and narrative formulae which characterize Verne's oeuvre as a whole.Important issues such as narrative structure, 19th-century ideology, and stylistic innovation in Verne's works discussed over the past few decades by writers and scholars on both sides of the Atlantic are almost totally ignored (despite the fact that the author cites many of these critical works in his endnotes).
Lottman does not elucidate the cultural conditions that have played such a large role in determining Verne's literary reputation, nor does he attempt to explain how Verne still remains a best-selling author in this context. His observations on Verne's influence on science, culture, and literature are perfunctory.
Lottman does occasionally raise tantalizing questions about Verne's personal life, but despite his subtitle, An Exploratory Biography, many of these points are then never investigated. For instance, Verne wrote to his brother in 1893: "You and I both committed an enormous and irreparable blunder; you know which one, without having to be specific. Tear up this letter. But what a life we'd have had, without that blunder."Despite Lottman's dwelling on Verne's anti-semitism, he fails to examine the impact of Jules and his son Michel's different reactions to the Dreyfuss Affair; Lottman is typically content merely to say, "it was not the only time a family split over Dreyfuss".
Instead of using such material as a key to exploring Verne's creative psyche, Lottman chooses to classify him according to a preformulated psychological profile. He sprinkles the book with bits of Freudian analysis, but never fully develops this methodology so that it might lead to a full portrait of Verne the man or writer. Lottman labels Verne an "anal" personality, which
is used as a catch-all justification to explain such diverse matters as Verne's worries about income and the spendthrift proclivities of his son Michel.
With this book, Lottman lives up to his reputation for meticulous attention to detail, although at times he seems to dwell on minutiae. For a nonacademic, commercial writer, Lottman has done an impressive quantity of research, taking advantage of the Verne libraries in Amiens and Nantes. He has thoroughly perused the well-indexed Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne, a quarterly which, since the 1960s, has published scholarly articles and primary texts about Verne. Extensive endnotes cover twenty-three pages in the English edition, and thirty pages in the French edition.
To Lottman's credit, he does follow in the footsteps of many French Verne scholars to correct a number of factual errors that have appeared in earlier Verne biographies, and incorporates much of what has been discovered in the two decades since Jean Jules-Verne's biography. Lottman is much interested in the business details of Verne's life, as might be expected from one also who
makes his living by his pen, and these financial matters receive a full airing. He provides the first thorough account in any English-language biography of Verne's collaborations with Adolphe d'Ennery on turning his novels into plays. On the other hand, Lottman offers little discussion of Verne's occasional collaboration on novels with Paschal Grousset (André Laurie), or of
the role played by Verne's son Michel in the composition of the posthumous Voyages Extraordinaires. In the last decade, the original manuscripts have appeared in print, revealing that the first versions published in the decade after Verne's death were extensively rewritten by, and in some cases originated with, Michel.
Lottman's prose is generally highly readable and engaging. He has labored to produce what he clearly intends to be the definitive biography of Verne. He has accumulated a wide array of data, but has been unable to synthesize this mass of information in a meaningful way.Lottman's book is especially disappointing because the time is so ripe for an account that would fuse the new biographical discoveries about Verne with the many insights of recent Vernian literary criticism. By analyzing the strictly material side of Verne's life, Lottman has neglected the creative talents and the well-springs of imagination that produced the fiction for which Verne is remembered. Those readers seeking to understand the reasons why Verne is one of the most widely translated and enduringly popular authors of all time will find little explanation in this biography.

An interesting yet not totally satisfying work
Jules Verne has been one of my favorites authors since I firstread his "Journey to the center of the earth". Combining the prophetic scientifical ideas and the masterly skill of a storyteller, Verne never fails to astound and fascinates his readers.

Although not an "juvenile" any more, I still from time to time grabbed one of his books from my bookshelf and regaled myself with his captivating voyages. I always wonder how can a man have all those great ideas; are they derived from his imagination orhis industrious study on science?

Now Lottman's book partly answers the question and solves the mystery of Jules Verne, whose public image is often out of accord with his real life. Lottman's research, including a lot of Verne and his family and his friends' correspondences, is detailed and authoritive.

Many anecdotes are interesting. For example: the idea of "Twenty thousands leagues under the sea" was first suggested by George Sand! In his youth, Verne exceled in Greek and literature but his scores on physics and chemistry were often poor. And, many books of Verne are influenced by Hetzel, Verne's book publisher, whose opinion often changed the plot of the whole story; captain Nemo, whose identity had been originally a Pole sworn to revenging the russia, but due to Hetzel, was finally changed into a Indian prince.

However, this book does not make one truly "understand" the character of the founding father of SF. Intending to be objective, Lottman does not judge Verne but only lists all relating facts that, after a lot of exhausting descriptions, we sometimes still do not know the true character of Jules Verne and many strange incidents about him: why should a cousin(Gaston Verne) shoot his uncle(Jules Verne) and make him lame for the rest of his life?What's really wrong with Jules Verne's son, Michel Verne? We read a lot of scathing reprimands about the latter from the former's letters but still don't know the reason. Was Michel Verne really a prodigal or had he commited some horrible crime, which must be kept a secret?

In spite of the weaknesses mentioned above, Lottman's biography still deserves reading, especilly for those longtime Verne's Fans. Though the master's life is still an enigma, this book at least shed some light on it. ... Read more

Book Description

This book is a magical passport transporting readers into the extraordinary, visionary world of Jules Verne. Not strictly a biography, it is a fascinating mix of picturesque anecdotes and extracts from his novels. Phileas Fogg and Captain Nemo spring to life again. The book is beautifully and evocatively illustrated by Stephane Heuet and translated by Helen Marx. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Similarities between Jules Verne and Leonardo Da Vinci
Had the opportunity to ask the author ,French Count Gonzaque St Bris , to autograph the book for me after his lecture in Lafayette, Louisiana. He pointed out some of the highlights of the book when talking about the Marquis de Lafayette. He mentions that Leonardo Da Vinci (whose home the Count lives in currently in France) designed and built ahome for King Francoisthat had a telephone/intercom system, doors that opened automatically and an indoor water system in the late 1400s. He compares the inventiveness of Jules Verne to Leonardo Da Vinci on many levels. The book is an easy read and very interesting. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Superb literary criticism on Jules Verne
A lucid, intelligent, and ground-breaking study of Jules Verne and his works by one of the top experts in the field. A flood of new imprints, translations, and monographs by/about Verne appeared during 2005 (the centennial of the legendary French author's death). Of these many publications, Unwin's book is one of the very best. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

all you'll need to know about Jules Verne
This was a wonderful book for me to read.It told me how Jules Verne lived.He grew up in Nantes,France, moved to Paris, France, and ended up living in the outskirts later. He was poor in the apartment that he lived in in Paris, and ended up in the stock exchange.It told me what ailed him.He had a lot of strees, but toward the end of his life he had 10 times as much stess, which led to him having his entire body paralyzed, which led to his death.this book tells all you'll ever need to know about Jules Verne. ... Read more

Book Description
Such novels as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days have made Jules Verne the most widely translated of all French authors.But he has typically been categorized as the father of science fiction or a writer of harmless fantasies for children. Now, in this brilliantly original new book, Andrew Martin relocates Verne squarely at the centre of the literary map.Dr Martin shows that a recurrent narrative (exemplified in short stories by Napoleon Bonaparte and Jorge Luis Borges), relating the strange destiny of a masked prophet who revolts against an empire, runs through Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires. This approach illuminates the paradoxical coalition in Verne of realism and invention, repression and transgression, imperialism and anarchy.In this book Verne emerges not just as a key to the political and literary imagination of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but as a model for reading fiction in general. ... Read more

Book Description
This first modern American study of Jules Verne offers a wide-ranging reappraisal of a very familiar but often misunderstood author and his works. In spite of his status as one of the most translated novelists of all time, Verne and his Voyages Extraordinaires have long been neglected in American literary scholarship. This book seeks to reaffirm Verne's significant contribution to the development of early science fiction through a detailed investigation of his romans scientifiques. Evans has focused his study on the didactic dimension of Verne's narratives, which were originally intended to teach the rudements of science and morality to French youth through the medium of popular fiction. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

New Insight into an Old Master
Although critics continue to debate whether Jules Verne's work is "true" science fiction (SF), rather than scientific romance, Verne is widely credited as one of the founders of the genre and in thepopular imagination, he and SF are seen as largely synonomous.Verne hasreceived renewed attention since the publication in 1994 of his "Parisau Vingtieme Siecle", and this has highlighted his importance as a keycommentatoron the anguishes of modernity.Arthur B. Evans provides adetailed account of the relationshipbetween Verne and the French literarycanon, demonstrating the "now-ineluctable trend towards rehabilitationand literary canonization".Daniel Compere exmines narrativetechnique, versimilitude, defamiliarization, naturalization and dialogismin Verne's work, while Timothy Unwin develops the enquiry into the natureof the Vernian text in discussing the role of scienceand textualrepetition. The interface between realism, utopianism and SF in a number ofVerne's novels is investigated by Sarah Capitano. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A bibliography as well as a biography of Jules Verne
Robert M. Quackenbush knows that as interested as young readers might be in how it took Jules Verne thirty-five years to publish his first book, he knows that his readers will be more interested in the "fantastic voyages" that Verne wrote about.However, it is interesting to read how Verne's wife rescued his manuscript about what it would be like to explore the unknown continent of Africa in a balloon.Urged to rewrite it by a publisher as a fictional adventure story based on new scientific facts, "Five Weeks in a Balloon" not only sold, but earned Verne a twenty-year contract to write two books a year.Up to that point "Who Said There's No Man on the Moon?: A Story of Jules Verne" was the story of a struggling writer.From then on Quackenbush tells of the novels Verne wrote, which includes not only the classics like "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "From the Earth to the Moon," "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," and "Around the World in Eighty Days," but also Verne's lesser known but equally imaginative stories such as "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras," "The Floating City," and "Dr. Ox."

That is why Quackenbush's biography is as much a bibliography, even though not even half of Verne's sixty works are mentioned.When he labels "Mysterious Island" as Verne's masterpiece you know that his young readers will agree and that they will probably want to check that book out first, which would be a minor mistake simply because there is a significant element that makes it a sequel of sorts to one "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."That sort of gives away what the link would be, but then Quackenbush is explicit on that point so I am actually being more circumspect here.As always with Quackenbush's juvenile biographies he provides his own illustrations.With each two-page spread one side is a full-page pen drawing with blue shadings while there is always a droll cartoon below the text on the other page.Usually this is a cartoon of a reporter asking Monsieur Verne a question, which allows Quackenbush to get off a one-liner in response (e.g, "Monsieur Verne, which is your favorite of all the books that you have written?" "The next one").

Even if they have not read any of Verne's stories, young readers will understand how he came to be known as the father of modern science fiction and considered the greatest storyteller of them all (Verne is the third most translated author today, behind the odd couple of Shakespeare and Lenin).They will be able to relate to the idea of a child dreaming of traveling to exotic lands and taking such trips in their own imagination.Other books in this series by Quackenbush include "The Beagle and Mr. Flycatcher: A Story of Charles Darwin," "Don't You Dare Shoot That Bear!: A Story of Theodore Roosevelt," and "What Has Wild Tom Done Now!!!?: A Story of Thomas Alva Edison.From all of these juvenile biographies you can expect more of the same. ... Read more

Book Description
Not only are the obvious adaptations of Verne's adventures examined, but also those derivations that bear mere elements. The arrangement is by Verne's title and begins with an analysis of the novel. The entry then presents in chronological order all adaptations, facilitating comparative analyses of not only the movies but also their relationships to the original story. Filmographic data are provided for each film, along with a plot synopsis and commentary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Reference-Work
As far as I know the only film-book about Jules Verne on film in english language. The Filmography is almost complete (I only found one german-TV-Movie about "Mathias Sandorf" missing)and lists evenwest- and easteuropean Films from the silent movies of Georges Méliès tilltoday (1997). Sometimes the author lists films which are"influenced" by Jules Vernes that goes for my taste a little bittoo far: "The Black Hole" by "20'000 Leagues Under TheSea". Still this book is definitively an important reference-work anbelongs in every serious filmbook-collection! ... Read more