Jules Verne
Spine number 01
Master Zacharius
A celebrated Geneva clockmaker finds that his watches are failing in ways he cannot explain. This Gothic tale turns mechanical precision into a struggle over pride, mortality and the soul; it first appeared in 1854 and was revised for the 1874 collection Doctor Ox.
1854 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 02
Five Weeks in a Balloon
Samuel Fergusson sets out to cross Africa in a balloon with his friend Kennedy and servant Joe. Weather, dwindling supplies and the hazards below turn a proposed scientific expedition into a succession of practical emergencies. Published in 1863, it was the first novel in the sequence that became the Extraordinary Voyages.
1863 · book · Fiction
Spine number 03
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras
An expedition aboard the Forward heads into Arctic waters under a captain determined to reach the North Pole. Endurance and scientific curiosity contend with an ambition that puts everyone aboard at risk. The two-part novel was serialised in 1864–1865 and issued in book form in 1866.
1864–1865 · book · Fiction
Spine number 04
Edgar Allan Poe and His Works
Verne considers Poe’s life and fiction, paying particular attention to the reasoning and imagination behind his extraordinary stories. This literary essay offers a view of Verne as a reader of another writer’s experiments. It appeared in the Musée des familles in April 1864.
1864 · essay · Non-fiction
Spine number 05
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
A cryptic message sends Professor Lidenbrock, his reluctant nephew Axel and their guide Hans beneath an Icelandic volcano. Axel’s anxiety gives the geological expedition a human scale as familiar explanations begin to fail. First published in 1864, the novel gained two chapters in 1867.
1864 · book · Fiction
Spine number 06
From the Earth to the Moon
The members of an American artillery club propose to fire a projectile at the Moon. Their immense undertaking combines calculations and engineering with rivalry, publicity and extravagant confidence. First published in 1865, the novel leads into Around the Moon.
1865 · book · Fiction
Spine number 07
The Children of Captain Grant
A damaged message found in a bottle offers a tantalising clue to the whereabouts of a missing captain. His children join an expedition whose uncertain evidence takes it across the southern hemisphere. Serialised in 1865–1867, the novel appeared in three book volumes in 1867–1868 and is also known in English as In Search of the Castaways.
1865–1867 · book · Fiction
Spine number 08
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
Professor Aronnax joins the pursuit of what seems to be a sea monster and finds himself aboard Captain Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilus. The ocean becomes a place of extraordinary discovery, but the captain’s hospitality comes with the loss of freedom. Both the serial and the first two-volume book publication extended across 1869–1870.
1869–1870 · book · Fiction
Spine number 09
Around the Moon
Barbicane, Nicholl and Michel Ardan continue the lunar adventure inside their projectile, observing the heavens while trying to understand their own course. The confinement sharpens the contrast between scientific calculation and the travellers’ temperaments. The sequel to From the Earth to the Moon was serialised in 1869 before its 1870 book edition.
1869 · book · Fiction
Spine number 10
A Floating City
A crossing aboard the enormous Great Eastern brings a narrator into a shipboard world of routines, strangers and private troubles. A romantic drama unfolds within this moving society, while the vessel itself remains an object of fascination. The novel appeared serially in 1870 and in book form in 1871.
1870 · book · Fiction
Spine number 11
The Fur Country
A party travels into the Canadian Arctic to establish a remote trading post. Building a secure settlement proves more uncertain than its planners expect, and the expedition becomes a test of observation and survival. The novel was serialised in 1872–1873 and published in two book volumes in 1873.
1872–1873 · book · Fiction
Spine number 12
Around the World in Eighty Days
Phileas Fogg wagers that he can circle the globe in eighty days, taking his new servant Passepartout into a tightly scheduled journey. Missed connections and unexpected obligations test a man who seems to have reduced life to a timetable. The novel ran in Le Temps in 1872 before its first book edition in 1873.
1872 · book · Fiction
Spine number 13
The Mysterious Island
Five fugitives from the American Civil War arrive by balloon on an unfamiliar island with almost nothing to sustain them. Their efforts to make shelter, tools and a working community are accompanied by events they cannot account for. Published serially and in three book volumes across 1874–1875, the novel connects with The Children of Captain Grant and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.
1874–1875 · book · Fiction
Spine number 14
The Chancellor
A passenger records a voyage that becomes a struggle to stay alive in the Atlantic. The journal form keeps the reader close to each dwindling resource and each difficult choice, making this one of Verne’s more severe survival stories. Serial publication began in December 1874 and ended in January 1875, before the book appeared that February.
1874–1875 · book · Fiction
Spine number 15
Michael Strogoff
A courier must carry a vital message across Russia to Irkutsk while concealing his identity. Travelling through a country disrupted by invasion, he encounters people whose loyalties and needs complicate his mission. This 1876 adventure makes duty, secrecy and physical endurance its driving forces.
1876 · book · Fiction
Spine number 16
The Black Indies
An invitation draws an engineer back to a Scottish coal mine believed to be exhausted. The promise of renewed work brings questions about who inhabits its underground spaces and what threatens the people exploring them. Published in 1877, the novel combines mining life, romance and mystery; it is also known as The Underground City.
1877 · book · Fiction
Spine number 17
A Fifteen-Year-Old Captain
An accident leaves the young sailor Dick Sand responsible for a ship and its passengers. His attempt to bring them safely home becomes an adventure shaped by deception and the violence of the slave trade. The novel was first published in 1878 and also circulates under the name Dick Sand.
1878 · book · Fiction
Spine number 18
The Begum’s Fortune
Two heirs use an enormous fortune to establish neighbouring cities with radically different purposes: one devoted to public wellbeing, the other to armaments. An engineer ventures into the conflict between these rival visions of progress. This record covers the novel first published in 1879, which Verne developed from a manuscript by André Laurie, rather than the accompanying Bounty narrative.
1879 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 19
The Steam House
Travellers cross northern India in carriages drawn by a mechanical elephant. The unusual vehicle carries them into conflicts still shaped by the uprising of 1857, as private grief and the desire for revenge disturb their journey. The novel was serialised in 1879–1880 and published in two book volumes in 1880.
1879–1880 · book · Fiction
Spine number 20
The Green Ray
Helena Campbell postpones a proposed marriage while she searches Scotland’s coasts for the elusive green flash at sunset. Her quest becomes a comedy of observation and courtship, in which looking carefully at the world does not always mean understanding other people. The novel first appeared in 1882.
1882 · book · Fiction
Spine number 21
Mathias Sandorf
A betrayed conspiracy against Austrian rule in Hungary sets a long adventure of imprisonment, pursuit and redress in motion. Across Mediterranean settings, concealed intentions and elaborate preparations keep the struggle alive. Published in 1885, it brings the machinery of the revenge romance into Verne’s world of technical ingenuity.
1885 · book · Fiction
Spine number 22
Robur the Conqueror
Advocates of balloon flight find themselves unwilling passengers aboard Robur’s powered flying machine, the Albatross. Their aerial journey becomes a dispute over invention and the inventor’s right to impose his will. First published in 1886, the novel introduces the figure who returns in Master of the World.
1886 · book · Fiction
Spine number 23
Two Years’ Vacation
A group of boys is cast ashore on a remote island and must organise its own means of survival. Rivalry and differences of temperament make cooperation as urgent a problem as finding food or shelter. The novel first appeared in 1888 and is also known as Adrift in the Pacific.
1888 · book · Fiction
Spine number 24
The Carpathian Castle
Disturbances in a supposedly deserted Transylvanian castle awaken the fears of a nearby village. A visitor’s connection with its owner draws private grief into the mystery. Published in 1892, the novel uses Gothic suspense to explore the uneasy border between what people see and what they believe.
1892 · book · Fiction
Spine number 25
An Antarctic Mystery
A voyage aboard the Halbrane becomes a search for the truth behind Arthur Gordon Pym’s extraordinary account of the southern seas. The crew follows uncertain traces towards Antarctica, where a literary mystery acquires immediate physical dangers. Published in 1897 as Le Sphinx des glaces, it continues Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
1897 · book · Fiction
Spine number 26
Master of the World
Investigator John Strock attempts to connect reports of unexplained disturbances and a vehicle of astonishing speed. His enquiry brings him up against an inventor whose technical power challenges public authority. This 1904 novel returns to Robur, first introduced in Robur the Conqueror.
1904 · book · Fiction
Spine number 27
The Lighthouse at the End of the World
Keepers take charge of an isolated lighthouse near Cape Horn, unaware that pirates are using the island as a refuge. The promise of safe passage for ships becomes the focus of a struggle for control and survival. This record represents the posthumous 1905 version revised by Michel Verne; Jules Verne’s original manuscript was published separately in 1999.
1905 · book · Fiction · Posthumous · Collaboration
Spine number 28
Uncle Robinson
A marooned family must learn how to sustain itself with the help of a sailor. This unfinished island narrative offers an earlier approach to the practical work of survival that Verne later explored in The Mysterious Island. Rejected by Hetzel during Verne’s lifetime, it was first published in French in 1991.
1991 · book · Fiction · Unfinished · Posthumous
Spine number 29
Paris in the Twentieth Century
A young man devoted to literature struggles to find a place in a Paris governed by industry and commercial usefulness. Set in 1960, the novel imagines technological abundance alongside indifference to the arts. Written early in Verne’s career and rejected by Hetzel, it remained unpublished until 1994.
1994 · book · Fiction · Posthumous
Begin with a race around the globe, then choose between subterranean exploration, a short Gothic tale and a longer ocean voyage. These routes offer different measures of Verne’s humour, curiosity and unease about human ambition.
Where to begin
Start here
Around the World in Eighty Days
Fogg’s timetable gives this adventure a clear forward pull, while Passepartout brings bustle and uncertainty to its carefully ordered world. It is an inviting introduction to Verne’s humour and his ability to turn practical obstacles into suspense.
Not yet in our collection
For exploration and discovery
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Axel’s apprehensive narration makes a useful companion to his uncle’s scientific certainty. Choose this for the pleasure of entering unfamiliar spaces, with arguments about evidence woven into the adventure.
Not yet in our collection
For a shorter, darker introduction
Master Zacharius
This compact Gothic story approaches invention through a clockmaker’s pride and fear. It offers a concentrated encounter with the troubling side of Verne’s fascination with mechanisms.
Not yet in our collection
Read next
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
Give this ocean voyage room for its observations of marine life as well as its episodes of danger. The tension between Aronnax’s delight in discovery and his dependence on Nemo makes it a rewarding next step into Verne’s longer fiction.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1854
Master Zacharius
short story
A celebrated Geneva clockmaker finds that his watches are failing in ways he cannot explain. This Gothic tale turns mechanical precision into a struggle over pride, mortality and the soul; it first appeared in 1854 and was revised for the 1874 collection Doctor Ox.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1863
Five Weeks in a Balloon
book
Samuel Fergusson sets out to cross Africa in a balloon with his friend Kennedy and servant Joe. Weather, dwindling supplies and the hazards below turn a proposed scientific expedition into a succession of practical emergencies. Published in 1863, it was the first novel in the sequence that became the Extraordinary Voyages.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1864
Edgar Allan Poe and His Works
essay
Verne considers Poe’s life and fiction, paying particular attention to the reasoning and imagination behind his extraordinary stories. This literary essay offers a view of Verne as a reader of another writer’s experiments. It appeared in the Musée des familles in April 1864.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1864
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
book
A cryptic message sends Professor Lidenbrock, his reluctant nephew Axel and their guide Hans beneath an Icelandic volcano. Axel’s anxiety gives the geological expedition a human scale as familiar explanations begin to fail. First published in 1864, the novel gained two chapters in 1867.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1864–1865
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras
book
An expedition aboard the Forward heads into Arctic waters under a captain determined to reach the North Pole. Endurance and scientific curiosity contend with an ambition that puts everyone aboard at risk. The two-part novel was serialised in 1864–1865 and issued in book form in 1866.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1865
From the Earth to the Moon
book
The members of an American artillery club propose to fire a projectile at the Moon. Their immense undertaking combines calculations and engineering with rivalry, publicity and extravagant confidence. First published in 1865, the novel leads into Around the Moon.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1865–1867
The Children of Captain Grant
book
A damaged message found in a bottle offers a tantalising clue to the whereabouts of a missing captain. His children join an expedition whose uncertain evidence takes it across the southern hemisphere. Serialised in 1865–1867, the novel appeared in three book volumes in 1867–1868 and is also known in English as In Search of the Castaways.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1869
Around the Moon
book
Barbicane, Nicholl and Michel Ardan continue the lunar adventure inside their projectile, observing the heavens while trying to understand their own course. The confinement sharpens the contrast between scientific calculation and the travellers’ temperaments. The sequel to From the Earth to the Moon was serialised in 1869 before its 1870 book edition.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1869–1870
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
book
Professor Aronnax joins the pursuit of what seems to be a sea monster and finds himself aboard Captain Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilus. The ocean becomes a place of extraordinary discovery, but the captain’s hospitality comes with the loss of freedom. Both the serial and the first two-volume book publication extended across 1869–1870.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1870
A Floating City
book
A crossing aboard the enormous Great Eastern brings a narrator into a shipboard world of routines, strangers and private troubles. A romantic drama unfolds within this moving society, while the vessel itself remains an object of fascination. The novel appeared serially in 1870 and in book form in 1871.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1872
Around the World in Eighty Days
book
Phileas Fogg wagers that he can circle the globe in eighty days, taking his new servant Passepartout into a tightly scheduled journey. Missed connections and unexpected obligations test a man who seems to have reduced life to a timetable. The novel ran in Le Temps in 1872 before its first book edition in 1873.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1872–1873
The Fur Country
book
A party travels into the Canadian Arctic to establish a remote trading post. Building a secure settlement proves more uncertain than its planners expect, and the expedition becomes a test of observation and survival. The novel was serialised in 1872–1873 and published in two book volumes in 1873.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1874–1875
The Chancellor
book
A passenger records a voyage that becomes a struggle to stay alive in the Atlantic. The journal form keeps the reader close to each dwindling resource and each difficult choice, making this one of Verne’s more severe survival stories. Serial publication began in December 1874 and ended in January 1875, before the book appeared that February.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1874–1875
The Mysterious Island
book
Five fugitives from the American Civil War arrive by balloon on an unfamiliar island with almost nothing to sustain them. Their efforts to make shelter, tools and a working community are accompanied by events they cannot account for. Published serially and in three book volumes across 1874–1875, the novel connects with The Children of Captain Grant and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1876
Michael Strogoff
book
A courier must carry a vital message across Russia to Irkutsk while concealing his identity. Travelling through a country disrupted by invasion, he encounters people whose loyalties and needs complicate his mission. This 1876 adventure makes duty, secrecy and physical endurance its driving forces.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1877
The Black Indies
book
An invitation draws an engineer back to a Scottish coal mine believed to be exhausted. The promise of renewed work brings questions about who inhabits its underground spaces and what threatens the people exploring them. Published in 1877, the novel combines mining life, romance and mystery; it is also known as The Underground City.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1878
A Fifteen-Year-Old Captain
book
An accident leaves the young sailor Dick Sand responsible for a ship and its passengers. His attempt to bring them safely home becomes an adventure shaped by deception and the violence of the slave trade. The novel was first published in 1878 and also circulates under the name Dick Sand.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1879
The Begum’s Fortune
book · Collaboration
Two heirs use an enormous fortune to establish neighbouring cities with radically different purposes: one devoted to public wellbeing, the other to armaments. An engineer ventures into the conflict between these rival visions of progress. This record covers the novel first published in 1879, which Verne developed from a manuscript by André Laurie, rather than the accompanying Bounty narrative.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1879–1880
The Steam House
book
Travellers cross northern India in carriages drawn by a mechanical elephant. The unusual vehicle carries them into conflicts still shaped by the uprising of 1857, as private grief and the desire for revenge disturb their journey. The novel was serialised in 1879–1880 and published in two book volumes in 1880.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1882
The Green Ray
book
Helena Campbell postpones a proposed marriage while she searches Scotland’s coasts for the elusive green flash at sunset. Her quest becomes a comedy of observation and courtship, in which looking carefully at the world does not always mean understanding other people. The novel first appeared in 1882.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1885
Mathias Sandorf
book
A betrayed conspiracy against Austrian rule in Hungary sets a long adventure of imprisonment, pursuit and redress in motion. Across Mediterranean settings, concealed intentions and elaborate preparations keep the struggle alive. Published in 1885, it brings the machinery of the revenge romance into Verne’s world of technical ingenuity.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1886
Robur the Conqueror
book
Advocates of balloon flight find themselves unwilling passengers aboard Robur’s powered flying machine, the Albatross. Their aerial journey becomes a dispute over invention and the inventor’s right to impose his will. First published in 1886, the novel introduces the figure who returns in Master of the World.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1888
Two Years’ Vacation
book
A group of boys is cast ashore on a remote island and must organise its own means of survival. Rivalry and differences of temperament make cooperation as urgent a problem as finding food or shelter. The novel first appeared in 1888 and is also known as Adrift in the Pacific.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1892
The Carpathian Castle
book
Disturbances in a supposedly deserted Transylvanian castle awaken the fears of a nearby village. A visitor’s connection with its owner draws private grief into the mystery. Published in 1892, the novel uses Gothic suspense to explore the uneasy border between what people see and what they believe.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1897
An Antarctic Mystery
book
A voyage aboard the Halbrane becomes a search for the truth behind Arthur Gordon Pym’s extraordinary account of the southern seas. The crew follows uncertain traces towards Antarctica, where a literary mystery acquires immediate physical dangers. Published in 1897 as Le Sphinx des glaces, it continues Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1904
Master of the World
book
Investigator John Strock attempts to connect reports of unexplained disturbances and a vehicle of astonishing speed. His enquiry brings him up against an inventor whose technical power challenges public authority. This 1904 novel returns to Robur, first introduced in Robur the Conqueror.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1905
The Lighthouse at the End of the World
book · Posthumous · Collaboration
Keepers take charge of an isolated lighthouse near Cape Horn, unaware that pirates are using the island as a refuge. The promise of safe passage for ships becomes the focus of a struggle for control and survival. This record represents the posthumous 1905 version revised by Michel Verne; Jules Verne’s original manuscript was published separately in 1999.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1991
Uncle Robinson
book · Unfinished · Posthumous
A marooned family must learn how to sustain itself with the help of a sailor. This unfinished island narrative offers an earlier approach to the practical work of survival that Verne later explored in The Mysterious Island. Rejected by Hetzel during Verne’s lifetime, it was first published in French in 1991.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1994
Paris in the Twentieth Century
book · Posthumous
A young man devoted to literature struggles to find a place in a Paris governed by industry and commercial usefulness. Set in 1960, the novel imagines technological abundance alongside indifference to the arts. Written early in Verne’s career and rejected by Hetzel, it remained unpublished until 1994.
Not yet in our collection
Jules Verne was a French novelist whose adventures bring geography, scientific enquiry and the practical problems of travel into the story itself. His travellers read maps, calculate distances and improvise machinery, but they also misunderstand one another and encounter ambitions that knowledge alone cannot resolve. Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1869–1870) and Around the World in Eighty Days (first serialised in 1872) show the range of his journeys, from imagined environments to the timetables of modern transport.
Born in Nantes on 8 February 1828, Verne went to Paris to study law and became involved in literary and theatrical circles. His partnership with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel began in 1862; Five Weeks in a Balloon appeared the following year. The novels gathered as the Extraordinary Voyages made exploration a framework for stories of discovery, danger and human resourcefulness.
Verne settled in Amiens in 1871 and later served on its municipal council. He died there on 24 March 1905. Several novels appeared after his death in versions revised by his son Michel, making the distinction between the first published texts and Verne’s surviving manuscripts important to their reading history.