Who here loves Jules Verne? I do! I do!

Jules wrote in French, his native tongue, a language with almost as much beauty and nobility as Mother English. However, when translators began bringing his body of work over into English, they had a brain fart and decided to do a shit job. Their first mistake was assuming his work was YA, even though it contained no vampires or werewolves. Their second mistake was dumbing down, glossing over, and most egregious of all, removing entire chunks of the actual science the work contained. Their third mistake was being political. As a Frenchman, Mr. Verne was not exactly enamored with Great Britain or America and this showed through in his work. The translators altered or removed this. If you have a Jules Verne book in English that doesn't cite a translator, throw it away. It's done by these early boneheaded translators.

It wasn't until around the 1960s that people began to say "Hey, maybe we shouldn't be such complete dipshits and actually translate this great writer CORRECTLY."

I have an old copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by the original translators that I keep around for comic relief. It doesn't say who translated it, probably to save the descendants from embarrassment. It's pretty fun to look at in light of my complete and annotated version, done by Miller and Walter. (Highly recommended by the way. Here it is, cheap as hell). One of my favorite parts to chuckle at has to do with the geological formation known as the Nebraska Badlands. Miller and Walter translate it correctly as "the Nebraska Badlands." The boneheads have "the disagreeable land of Nebraska." Trust me, that ain't the end of it. On and on it goes.

If you love Verne, you'll love him even more if you read modern translations.