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Verne and Wells

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The History of Science Fiction

Part of the book series: Palgrave Histories of Literature ((Palgrave Histories of Literature))

Abstract

Frenchman Jules Verne and Englishman Herbert George Wells remain, arguably, the two most famous writers of science fiction in the genre’s history. Their names are conventionally linked, as in the present chapter, although they never met, came from different generations

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘The preoccupations and techniques of Verne seemed to me to link him with many other, more highly regarded writers [than SF writers]. At the very least he resisted containment in the categories that had been allotted to him. When I came across Kurt Vonnegut’s remark that “I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labelled ‘science fiction’ and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal,” I seemed to hear the voice of Verne. The purpose of this book, then, is to deliver Verne from confinement in that drawer’ [Martin, xi].

  2. 2.

    In John Clute’s impassioned words ‘the reputation [Verne] long had in English-speaking countries for narrative clumsiness and ignorance of scientific matters was fundamentally due to his innumerate and illiterate translators who … remained impenetrably of the conviction that he was a writer of overblown juveniles and that it was thus necessary to trim him down, to eliminate any inappropriately adult complexities, and to pare the confusing scientific material to an absolute minimum’ [Clute, 1276–77]. It should be added that more recent translations have been far more faithful to the original.

  3. 3.

    It was an emblem to which Verne returned several times in his writing career, most notably in Les Cinq cents millions de la Bégum (The Bégum’s Five Hundred Million 1879) and Sans dessus dessous (Anti-topsy-turvy, 1889).

  4. 4.

    English doctor Benjamin Ward Richardson was so impressed by Verne’s submarine that he even inserted one (made of wood) into his historical novel set in Roman times, The Son of a Star: A Romance of the Second Century (1888).

  5. 5.

    Andrew Martin discusses the difficulty of translating this title: the French phrase sens dessus dessous means topsy turvy, or upside down, but Verne’s title ‘by replacing the e in sens by an a, signifies something like the opposite of these … and might be loosely rendered as: ‘No More Ups and Downs’ or ‘An End to Inversion’ [Martin, 179–80].

  6. 6.

    There is one further point that must be made about Verne’s enduring impact on the genre. In addition to being multi-modal works themselves, combining visual and textual elements, Verne’s novels migrate promiscuously into a variety of other idioms. For instance, he became better known to most 20th-century audiences through the many cinematic adaptations of his books. Even in the 19th century there were many theatrical and operatic versions of his books staged. Verne himself adapted some of his voyages extraordinaires to the stage in collaboration with Adolphe Dennery. Le Tour du Monde en 80 Jours (first staged in 1875) ran (in the words of Laurence Senelick) ‘for a record-breaking 652 nights … [and] set the style for the pièce à grand spectacle’ [Senelick, 3]. Offenbach’s opéra bouffe Le Voyage dans la lune (1875) took from Verne’s novel title and mode of travel (firing out of a large cannon), although the story develops in rather un-Vernean directions—the 23 scenes of this lengthy opera actually land the actors on a topsy turvy satirical Moon familiar from the 17th and 18th centuries. The work was a hit, running for 185 performances. Other SF writers have also returned to Verne, writing sequels and adaptations. One 21st-century Anglophone novel even sports the improbable title Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea.

  7. 7.

    See for example E S Holden, ‘Bright Projections at the Terminator of Mars’, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (December 1894), 284–5. Holden considers whether these lights might index alien life, but with proper scholarly caution downplays the possibility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK

    Adam Roberts

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Roberts, A. (2016). Verne and Wells. In: The History of Science Fiction. Palgrave Histories of Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_8

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