JULES VERNE Biography - Writers

 
 

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JULES VERNE

Jules Verne (1828-1905), French writer and pioneer of science fiction, whose       
best known works today are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (first pub.1870,   
transl. to English, 1873) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).               
                                                                                   
Jules Gabriel Verne was born on February 8, 1828, in Nantes, France. His parents   
were of a seafaring tradition, a factor which influenced his writings. As a boy,   
Jules Verne ran off to be a cabin boy on a merchant ship, but he was caught and     
returned to his parents. In 1847 Jules was sent to study law in Paris. While       
there, however, his passion for the theatre grew. Later in 1850, Jules Verne's     
first play was published. His father was outraged when he heard that Jules was     
not going to continue law, so he discontinued the money he was giving him to pay   
for his expenses in Paris. This forced Verne to make money by selling his           
stories.                                                                           
                                                                                   
After spending many hours in Paris libraries studying geology, engineering, and     
astronomy, Jules Verne published his first novel Five Weeks in a Balloon(1863).     
Soon he started writing novels such as Journey to the Center of the Earth(1864)     
and From the Earth to the Moon(1866).                                               
                                                                                   
Because of the popularity of these and other novels, Jules Verne became a very     
rich man. In 1876, he bought a large yacht and sailed around Europe. His last       
novel The Invasion of the Sea appeared in 1905.                                     
                                                                                   
Jules Verne died in the city of Amines on March 24, 1905.