About the Author
Jules Verne, born at Nantes, France, in 1828, of legal and seafaring stock, was the author of innumerable adventure stories that combined a vivid imagination with a gift for popularizing science. Although he studied law at Paris, he devoted his life entirely to writing. His most popular stories, besides
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870), include:
Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863),
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864),
A Trip to the Moon (1865),
Around the World in Eighty Days (1872), and
Michael Strogoff (1876). In addition, he was the author of a number of successful plays, as well as a popular history of exploration from Phoenician times to the mid-nineteenth century,
The Discovery of the Earth (1878-80). After a long and active career in literature, Jules Verne died at Amiens, France, in 1905.
Robin Waterfield is a graduate of Manchester University and studied Greek philosphy at King's College, Cambridge. He is currently writing a major biography of Kahlil Gibran.