Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Round the World in Eighty Days

by Jules Verne

In Journey to the Centre of the Earth , an obsessive German professor and his nephew travel towards the earth’s core in the steps of a medieval explorer beneath an Icelandic volcano where they discover a lost world. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is famous for its portrayal of the Byronic Captain Nemo and his submarine, the Nautilus , in which he explores the ocean while wreaking vengeance on mankind for their wickedness. In Around the World in Eighty Days , a starchy Englishman suspected of robbing the Bank of England accepts a bet that he cannot circumnavigate the globe in that time, and proceeds to do so, accompanied by his resourceful valet, Passepartout.

The three novels combine fantasy and rich local colour with true learning and cod science in a mixture which attracts readers of all ages.

Genres: Classics, Novels

680 pages, Hardcover

Published September 5, 2013

About the author

Novels of French writer Jules Gabriel Verne, considered the founder of modern science fiction, include Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

This author who pioneered the genre. People best know him for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).

Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before people invented navigable aircraft and practical submarines and devised any means of spacecraft. He ranks behind Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie as the second most translated author of all time. People made his prominent films. People often refer to Verne alongside Herbert George Wells as the "father of science fiction."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_V...

Reviews

[Stephen Heiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, let me state at the outset that I find this Everyman edition to be outstanding and I will only be buying more of their well-bound, reasonably priced editions in the future.

This particular volume has three novels in it. I've reviewed Journey to the Center of the Earth here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... and Around the World in 80 days here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

This review, and the 3 stars, applies to the final novel in this book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

I should say I read this after having read the previous two novels, which I really enjoyed. I was expecting more of the same - an "adventure" novel with comic book tendencies of plot and suspense, but was fairly disappointed. The plot was nonexistent, the ending was abrupt and pointless, and our characters inspired neither love nor loyalty. If there's one of Jules Verne's works you can skip, it's this one.

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who has made more than 25 dives on three different continents and loves marine life. This is, at best, a catalogue of sea life, with some disconnected and arbitrary adventures thrown in.

[justin banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.7/10 “Journey To The Center Of The Earth” - 6.8/10. “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” - 7.1/10. “Round The World In Eighty Days” - 7.5/10

[Venice White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible stories with wonderfully descriptive language and where you can get lost in the sub-terrainian worlds of our earth. Four stars because of the endings. There's one thing in leaving room for though and imagination but to leave loose threads gives a sense of I can't be bothered having built such interesting characters throughout the story.

[Nbar · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Gentlemen, I have the honour to introduce to you a man of the fourth epoch. Great savants have denied his existence; others equally great have maintained it. The Saint Thomas of palæontology, were he here, would touch him with the finger and believe! I know how necessary it is for science to be on her guard against discoveries of this kind. I am aware of the contrivances of Barnum, and others of the same class, to impose on the world a fossil man. I know about the kneecap of Ajax, the pretended body of Orestes, discovered by the Spartans, and the body os Asterius, nine cubits long, of which Pausanias tells. I have read the reports on the skeleton of Trapani, found in the fourteenth century, which is was sought to identify as Polyphemous, and the history of the giant disinterred near Palermo, in the sixteenth century. You also, gentlemen, are acquainted with the analysis made near Lucerne, in 1577, of those gigantic bones which the celebrated physician Felix Plater declared were those of a giant, nineteen teeth high! I have read eagerly the treatises of Cassanio, and all the memoirs, pamphlets, essays and counter-essays published à propos of the skeleton of the Cambrian king Teutobochus, the invader of Gaul, exhumed in a gravel-pit in Dauphiné in 1613. In the eighteenth century I would have contested with Pierre Campet the existence of the pre-adamites of Scheuchzer! I have in my hands the monograph called Gigan—"

Here was my uncle's natural infirmity; he could not in public pronounce difficult words without stumbling.

"The monograph called Gigan—," he repeated.

He got no farther.

"Giganto—"

No, the unfortunate word would stick there. How they would have laughed at the Johannæum!

"Gigantosteology!"