Editing Jules Verne (section)

==Works==
{{See also|Jules Verne bibliography}}
[[File:1889 Verne poster.jpg|thumb|upright|An 1889 Hetzel poster advertising Verne's works]]
[[File:RO025MS-05.jpg|thumb|Verne novels, ''[[The Carpathian Castle]]'', ''[[The Danube Pilot]]'', ''[[Claudius Bombarnac]]'', and ''[[Kéraban the Inflexible]]'', on a miniature sheet of Romanian postage stamps (2005)]]
Verne's largest body of work is the ''[[Voyages extraordinaires]]'' series, which includes all of his novels except for the two rejected manuscripts ''[[Paris in the Twentieth Century]]'' and ''[[Backwards to Britain]]'' (published posthumously in 1994 and 1989, respectively) and for projects left unfinished at his death (many of which would be posthumously adapted or rewritten for publication by his son Michel).{{sfn|Dehs|Margot|Har'El|2007|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20000510190418/https://jv.gilead.org.il/biblio/apocrypha.html X]}} Verne also wrote many plays, poems, song texts, [[operetta]] [[Libretto|libretti]], and short stories, as well as a variety of essays and miscellaneous non-fiction.
<!-- Additional subsections could be added, such as "Themes". The "Themes" subsection can include the following entry among others:
* '''[[Antiwar]] sentiments''': Throughout his life, Verne consistently lampooned and criticized war and the military life.{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=29}}
The French Wikipedia quotes Chapter XX of ''Five Weeks in a Balloon'' to illustrate the point.-->

===Literary reception===
After his [[debut novel|debut]] under Hetzel, Verne was enthusiastically received in France by writers and scientists alike, with [[George Sand]] and [[Théophile Gautier]] among his earliest admirers.{{sfn|Evans|2000|pp=11–12}} Several notable contemporary figures, from the geographer Vivien de Saint-Martin to the critic [[Jules Claretie]], spoke highly of Verne and his works in critical and biographical notes.{{sfn|Evans|2000|pp=12–13}}

However, Verne's growing popularity among readers and playgoers (due especially to the highly successful stage version of ''Around the World in Eighty Days'') led to a gradual change in his literary reputation.  As the novels and stage productions continued to sell, many contemporary critics felt that Verne's status as a commercially popular author meant he could only be seen as a mere genre-based storyteller, rather than a serious author worthy of academic study.{{sfn|Evans|2000|p=14}}

This denial of formal literary status took various forms, including dismissive criticism by such writers as [[Émile Zola]] and the lack of Verne's nomination for membership in the [[Académie Française]],{{sfn|Evans|2000|p=14}} and was recognized by Verne himself, who said in a late interview: "The great regret of my life is that I have never taken any place in French literature."{{sfn|Sherard|1894|loc=§1}} To Verne, who considered himself "a man of letters and an artist, living in the pursuit of the ideal",{{sfn|Sherard|1894|loc=§6}} this critical dismissal on the basis of literary ideology could only be seen as the ultimate snub.{{sfn|Evans|2000|p=15}}

This bifurcation of Verne as a popular genre writer but a critical ''[[persona non grata]]'' continued after his death, with early biographies (including one by Verne's own niece, Marguerite Allotte de la Fuÿe) focusing on error-filled and embroidered [[hagiography]] of Verne as a popular figure rather than on Verne's actual working methods or his output.{{sfn|Evans|2000|pp=22–23}} Meanwhile, sales of Verne's novels in their original unabridged versions dropped markedly even in Verne's home country, with abridged versions aimed directly at children taking their place.{{sfn|Evans|2000|p=23}}

However, the decades after Verne's death also saw the rise in France of the "Jules Verne cult", a steadily growing group of scholars and young writers who took Verne's works seriously as literature and willingly noted his influence on their own pioneering works. Some of the cult founded the Société Jules Verne, the first academic society for Verne scholars; many others became highly respected ''[[avant garde]]'' and [[surrealist]] literary figures in their own right. Their praise and analyses, emphasizing Verne's stylistic innovations and enduring literary themes, proved highly influential for literary studies to come.{{sfn|Evans|2000|pp=24–6}}

In the 1960s and 1970s, thanks in large part to a sustained wave of serious literary study from well-known French scholars and writers, Verne's reputation skyrocketed in France.{{sfn|Angenot|1976|p=46}}{{sfn|Evans|2000|p=29}} [[Roland Barthes]]' seminal essay ''Nautilus et Bateau Ivre'' (''The [[Nautilus (fictional submarine)|Nautilus]] and the [[Drunken Boat]]'') was influential in its [[exegesis]] of the ''Voyages extraordinares'' as a purely literary text, while book-length studies by such figures as Marcel Moré and Jean Chesneaux considered Verne from a multitude of thematic vantage points.{{sfn|Angenot|1973|pp=35–36}}

French literary journals devoted entire issues to Verne and his work, with essays by such imposing literary figures as [[Michel Butor]], [[Georges Borgeaud]], [[Marcel Brion]], [[Pierre Versins]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[René Barjavel]], [[Marcel Lecomte]], [[Francis Lacassin]], and [[Michel Serres]]; meanwhile, Verne's entire published opus returned to print, with unabridged and illustrated editions of his works printed by [[Livre de Poche]] and [[Éditions Rencontre]].{{sfn|Evans|2000|pp=29–30}} The wave reached its climax in Verne's [[sesquicentennial]] year 1978, when he was made the subject of an academic colloquium at the [[Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle]], and ''[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]'' was accepted for the French university system's ''[[agrégation]]'' reading list. Since these events, Verne has been consistently recognized in Europe as a legitimate member of the French literary canon, with academic studies and new publications steadily continuing.{{sfn|Evans|2000|pp=32–33}}

Verne's reputation in English-speaking countries has been considerably slower in changing. Throughout the 20th century, most anglophone scholars dismissed Verne as a genre writer for children and a naïve proponent of science and technology (despite strong evidence to the contrary on both counts), thus finding him more interesting as a technological prophet or as a subject of comparison to English-language writers such as [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and [[H. G. Wells]] than as a topic of literary study in his own right. This narrow view of Verne has undoubtedly been influenced by the poor-quality [[#English translations|English translations]] and very loosely adapted [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood film]] versions through which most American and British readers have discovered Verne.{{sfn|Evans|2000|p=33}}{{sfn|Butcher|1983}} However, since the mid-1980s a considerable number of serious English-language studies and translations have appeared, suggesting that a rehabilitation of Verne's anglophone reputation may currently be underway.<ref name=Miller2009 />{{sfn|Evans|2000|p=34}}

===English translations===
[[File:A Journey to the Centre of the Earth-1874.jpg|upright|thumb|An early edition of the notorious Griffith & Farran adaptation of ''[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]'']]
Translation of Verne into English began in 1852, when Verne's short story ''[[A Voyage in a Balloon]]'' (1851) was published in the American journal ''[[Sartain's Magazine|Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art]]'' in a translation by [[Anne Toppan Wilbur Wood|Anne T. Wilbur]].{{sfn|Evans|2005b|p=117}} Translation of his novels began in 1869 with William Lackland's translation of ''[[Five Weeks in a Balloon]]'' (originally published in 1863),{{sfn|Evans|2005b|p=105}} and continued steadily throughout Verne's lifetime, with publishers and hired translators often working in great haste to rush his most lucrative titles into English-language print.{{sfn|Evans|2005a|p=80}} Unlike Hetzel, who targeted all ages with his publishing strategies for the ''Voyages extraordinaires'', the British and American publishers of Verne chose to market his books almost exclusively to young audiences; this business move had a long-lasting effect on Verne's reputation in English-speaking countries, implying that Verne could be treated purely as a children's author.<ref name=Miller2009>{{cite magazine |last=Miller |first=Walter James |title=As Verne smiles |magazine=Verniana |year=2009 |volume=1 |url=http://www.verniana.org/volumes/01/HTML/VerneSmiles.html |access-date=21 March 2013}}</ref>{{sfn|Evans|2005a|p=117}}

These early English-language translations have been widely criticized for their extensive textual omissions, errors, and alterations, and are not considered adequate representations of Verne's actual novels.{{sfn|Evans|2005a|p=80}}<ref name=Roberts>{{cite news |last=Roberts |first=Adam |date=11 September 2007 |title=Jules Verne deserves a better translation service |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |location=London, UK |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/sep/11/julesvernedeservesabetter |access-date=16 March 2013}}</ref><ref name=Crichton>{{cite book |last=Crichton |first=Michael |year=2001 |others=Verne, Jules (author of main title) |chapter=Introduction (by Michael Crichton) |title=Journey to the Centre of the Earth |pages=vii–xxii |publisher=Folio Society |location=London, UK |chapter-url=http://www.ibiblio.org/julesverne/books/crichton%20intro.pdf |access-date=15 March 2013}}</ref> In an essay for ''[[The Guardian]]'', British writer [[Adam Roberts (British writer)|Adam Roberts]] commented: <blockquote>I'd always liked reading Jules Verne and I've read most of his novels; but it wasn't until recently that I really understood I hadn't been reading Jules Verne at all ... It's a bizarre situation for a world-famous writer to be in. Indeed, I can't think of a major writer who has been so poorly served by translation.<ref name=Roberts/></blockquote>

Similarly, the American novelist [[Michael Crichton]] observed:

{{blockquote|Verne's prose is lean and fast-moving in a peculiarly modern way ... [but] Verne has been particularly ill-served by his English translators. At best they have provided us with clunky, choppy, tone-deaf prose. At worst – as in the notorious 1872 "translation" [of ''[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]''] published by Griffith & Farran – they have blithely altered the text, giving Verne's characters new names, and adding whole pages of their own invention, thus effectively obliterating the meaning and tone of Verne's original.<ref name=Crichton/>}}

Since 1965, a considerable number of more accurate English translations of Verne have appeared. However, the older, deficient translations continue to be republished due to their [[public domain]] status, and in many cases their easy availability in online sources.<ref name=Miller2009/>

===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}}