Editing Jules Verne (section)

===Relationship with science fiction===
[[File:Jules Verne Algerie.jpg|thumb|upright|Caricature of Verne with fantastic sea life (1884)]]
The relationship between Verne's ''Voyages extraordinaires'' and the literary genre science fiction is a complex one. Verne, like [[H. G. Wells]], is frequently cited as one of the founders of the genre, and his profound influence on its development is indisputable; however, many earlier writers, such as [[Lucian of Samosata]], [[Voltaire]], and [[Mary Shelley]], have also been cited as creators of science fiction, an unavoidable ambiguity arising from the vague definition and [[History of science fiction|history of the genre]].<ref name="Roberts48">{{citation|last=Roberts|first=Adam|title=Science Fiction|publisher=Routledge|location=London|year=2000|page=48}}</ref>

A primary issue at the heart of the dispute is the question of whether Verne's works count as science fiction to begin with. [[Maurice Renard]] claimed that Verne "never wrote a single sentence of scientific-marvelous".<ref>{{citation|first=Maurice|last=Renard|url=http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/documents/renard.htm|title=On the Scientific-Marvelous Novel and Its Influence on the Understanding of Progress|journal=Science Fiction Studies|volume=21|issue=64|date=November 1994|access-date=25 January 2016}}</ref> Verne himself argued repeatedly in interviews that his novels were not meant to be read as scientific, saying "I have invented nothing".{{sfn|Sherard|1903|loc=§5}} His own goal was rather to "depict the earth [and] at the same time to realize a very high ideal of beauty of style",{{sfn|Sherard|1894|loc=§4}} as he pointed out in an example:

{{blockquote|I wrote ''[[Five Weeks in a Balloon]]'', not as a story about ballooning, but as a story about Africa. I always was greatly interested in geography, history and travel, and I wanted to give a romantic description of Africa. Now, there was no means of taking my travellers through Africa otherwise than in a balloon, and that is why a balloon is introduced.... I may say that at the time I wrote the novel, as now, I had no faith in the possibility of ever steering balloons...{{sfn|Sherard|1894|loc=§4}}}}

Closely related to Verne's science-fiction reputation is the often-repeated claim that he is a "[[prophet]]" of scientific progress, and that many of his novels involve elements of technology that were fantastic for his day but later became commonplace.{{sfn|Evans|1988|p=1}} These claims have a long history, especially in America, but the modern scholarly consensus is that such claims of prophecy are heavily exaggerated.{{sfn|Evans|1988|p=2}} In a 1961 article critical of ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas''{{'}} scientific accuracy, [[Theodore L. Thomas]] speculated that Verne's storytelling skill and readers' faulty memories of a book they read as children caused people to "remember things from it that are not there. The impression that the novel contains valid scientific prediction seems to grow as the years roll by".<ref name="thomas196112">{{Cite magazine |last=Thomas |first=Theodore L. |date=December 1961 |title=The Watery Wonders of Captain Nemo |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v20n02_1961-12_modified#page/n42/mode/1up  |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction |pages=168–177 }}</ref> As with science fiction, Verne himself flatly denied that he was a futuristic prophet, saying that any connection between scientific developments and his work was "mere coincidence" and attributing his indisputable scientific accuracy to his extensive research: "even before I began writing stories, I always took numerous notes out of every book, newspaper, magazine, or scientific report that I came across."{{sfn|Belloc|1895}}