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Journey Through the Impossible
Jules Verne, the most translated novelist in the world and best known for books such as Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas and Around the World in Eighty Days, was also a prolific playwright. Journey Through the Impossible, a play of fantasy and science fiction, ran for 97 performances in Paris in 1882 and 1883. In the three acts, the characters go first to the center of the Earth, then under the sea, and finally to the planet "Altor." Characters from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, From the Earth to the Moon, Doctor Ox, and Journey to the Center of the Earth appear again in Journey through the Impossible, including Captain Nemo, President Barbican, Michel Ardan, Doctor Ox, and Professor Lidenbrock.
Verne wrote this play in the middle of his life, between his optimistic (science helps humanity and is good) and pessimistic (science is dangerous and bad) works; the play is a vehicle for Verne to ask himself and his readers whether science, technology, and the pursuit of knowledge are good or bad. He used the play to pose questions about life and wisdom that are still important in our time.
The script of the play was lost to Verne scholars for almost a century, until the text was discovered in 1978 in the Archives of the Censorship Office of the Third French Republic and was published in French in 1981. The play had many reviews in 1882 and two of them are included here to give the reader insight into how the play was staged in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. Also included are many wonderful illustrations showing set designs for the original play, a page from a lost scene, the original frontispiece, and other interesting details.
This is the first complete edition and the first English translation of a surprising work by a popular French novelist whose works continue to delight readers and audiences to this day.
Verne wrote this play in the middle of his life, between his optimistic (science helps humanity and is good) and pessimistic (science is dangerous and bad) works; the play is a vehicle for Verne to ask himself and his readers whether science, technology, and the pursuit of knowledge are good or bad. He used the play to pose questions about life and wisdom that are still important in our time.
The script of the play was lost to Verne scholars for almost a century, until the text was discovered in 1978 in the Archives of the Censorship Office of the Third French Republic and was published in French in 1981. The play had many reviews in 1882 and two of them are included here to give the reader insight into how the play was staged in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. Also included are many wonderful illustrations showing set designs for the original play, a page from a lost scene, the original frontispiece, and other interesting details.
This is the first complete edition and the first English translation of a surprising work by a popular French novelist whose works continue to delight readers and audiences to this day.
- GenresFiction
140 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1881
2 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Jules Verne
5,620 books12.1k followersNovels 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 21, 2017
Wow...this reads like fanfiction, yet it was written by Jules Verne himself! A fast-paced Victorian melodrama, so bad it's good. I like the message of the story, but Verne expresses it much better in his actual novels. Still, it's an interesting play in many ways, with some moments of genuine humor to lighten the action. The fantastic steampunk illustrations and the inclusion of two critical reviews from 1882 bring this up from a 3 stars to a 4. Recommended for Jules Verne completionists, but others can probably skip.
February 11, 2009
This play is short, fun and enjoyable, and full of unique characters, a few returning from other Verne books. George Hatteras is very much intrigued by the thought of extraordinary explorations, and his fiancee Eva and her grandmother are concerned about his mental state. They ask for Dr. Ox's help, who convinces both them and George that the young man should go ahead with his adventure, an "impossible" journey that leads to the center of the earth, to the bottom of the sea, and finally to the plantet Altor. Dr. Ox, who actually wants George to be driven to insanity so he can claim Eva, supplies the travelers (himself, George, Eva, a dance instructor, and others to follow) with a potion that allows them to survive the impossible and travel at an extreme rate of speed. In the process, they meet and surpass the efforts of Professor Lidenbrock, Captain Nemo, and Ardan of the Gun Club. Those three are forms of a spirit named Volsius who attempts to guide George away from Dr. Ox and his evil. Despite the contention between Volsius and Ox, George successfully completes his impossible journey through earth, sea and space.
September 2, 2017
Traducción al inglés de la obra de teatro recientemente descubierta (es un decir) y que simplemente se pensaba que no había sido escrita, pero un avezado investigador se dio cuenta de que, en la supuesta época en la que fue creada, toda obra de teatro no solo debería pasar por la censura gubernamental, sino también copiada -a mano- por funcionarios, y debidamente almacenada. Y, efectivamente, ahí estaba, entre otra morralla similar.
Y así la hemos podido "disfrutar" los fans de Verne, y lo pongo entre comillas porque la obra no es mala: es pésima. Supongo que en su momento debió de tener su cosa por los efectos especiales, pero tanto los diálogos como las escenas son bastante risibles... si no fuera por una sola cosa, y es por lo que le doy las cinco estrellas.
He leído varios estudios sobre este trabajo de Verne, pero ninguno parece darse cuenta de que el único motivo de esta obra es reírse de uno mismo. Sabemos que Verne era un cachondo mental -solo hay que leer muchas de sus cartas personales-y no hay mejor manera que reírte de tu propia producción literaria.
EL diálogo entre los miembros del Gun-Club, por ejemplo, es épico en cuanto a segundas intenciones, y los que ocurren en el planeta Altor quizás lleguen un poco a la completa incorrección política (para la época, claro), y eso sin contar cuando Valdemar (alias de Axel Liddenbrock) se desengaña de su "Graüben" y se echa en los brazos de Tartelet, que ya apuntaba "plumas" en la novela original en la que aparece. Todo un logro poner esas cosas en público y pasar la censura gubernamental de la época.
Y así la hemos podido "disfrutar" los fans de Verne, y lo pongo entre comillas porque la obra no es mala: es pésima. Supongo que en su momento debió de tener su cosa por los efectos especiales, pero tanto los diálogos como las escenas son bastante risibles... si no fuera por una sola cosa, y es por lo que le doy las cinco estrellas.
He leído varios estudios sobre este trabajo de Verne, pero ninguno parece darse cuenta de que el único motivo de esta obra es reírse de uno mismo. Sabemos que Verne era un cachondo mental -solo hay que leer muchas de sus cartas personales-y no hay mejor manera que reírte de tu propia producción literaria.
EL diálogo entre los miembros del Gun-Club, por ejemplo, es épico en cuanto a segundas intenciones, y los que ocurren en el planeta Altor quizás lleguen un poco a la completa incorrección política (para la época, claro), y eso sin contar cuando Valdemar (alias de Axel Liddenbrock) se desengaña de su "Graüben" y se echa en los brazos de Tartelet, que ya apuntaba "plumas" en la novela original en la que aparece. Todo un logro poner esas cosas en público y pasar la censura gubernamental de la época.
December 16, 2014
I found this play very disappointing. Of course, I would have been looking in the wrong place had I expected anything more from it than an easy-flowing adventure story, but I think that before reading this play I had underestimated just how much rubbish could such a story be.
The characters in the play could be called one-dimensional only with some effort. That perhaps is also not surprising, given that the gist of the play is its plot, but even the plot I found unsatisfactory. One of the reasons for that is that the storyline is not only disingenuous to the extreme, but also irritating in its moral implications if one cares to make them, but it's hard to not care because they are so obviously questionable:
Here is George Hatteras, grandson of a famous explorer whose heritage is kept secret from him, lest he be tempted to follow in his grandfather's steps and become an explorer himself. There is Eva, his fiancée, a 'good' character who would do anything to stop George from going on a journey and once he is on, to try to persuade him to go back. There we have the 'bad' doctor Ox, who wants to send George on a journey in order to separate him from Eva with whom Ox is in love, so in the entirety of his evil wickedness the doctor gives the characters a magic potion, and ta-da, they all find themselves on a journey through the impossible. The trio is accompanied by two clown-characters making unsuccessful attempts to be funny throughout the play, and Volsius, a 'good' version of Ox if you wish, seeming able to unproblematically make magic happen, who is there to help Eva to get George back from the journey. And there we all go, a romp through various scenes in three 'impossible' worlds which Ox reveals to George in the hope of making him go insane, whilst Eva and Volsious are unsuccessfully trying to talk him back while making sure on the side that he doesn't accidentally kill himself or who knows what. And this all lasts, until when it's time for the play to finish, and so Eva in a venturous spirit summons up the brilliance to reveal to Ox that if he lets anything bad happen to George, she will hate him, and so that complete freak of a bastard, the doctor, crushed under the enormous power of love, no longer tempts George to keep journeying and, suddenly, without any explanation offered, we are all back in the room where the play started, the happy ending being that George, now 'sane', promises Eva that he will no longer attempt any journeys, that he only wants to love her.
I couldn't hear my comment over the sound of facepalms, so no further comment I believe here necessary, except the one that perhaps the ending of the play is indeed happy, for Eva didn't deserve the doctor who was too good for a woman who wants her pet-husband to never show his nose out of the house, passing this as 'love' on top of that, while she would make a good couple with a man who is apparently nothing like his grandfather and so incompetent he cannot handle both the adventure and the girl at the same time, and anyway he needs just too much help to survive and forgets his passion the minute a third person stops tempting him. In short: that was a close escape, Ox, next time choose some people who like to actually think. Anyhow.
Another reason I didn't like the play beside the storyline is that the rest of it, the 'filler' - although perhaps the storyline is the real filler here - is also quite boring with not a single scene that struck me as original, nor a line as memorable. Here we have 3 acts, the first taking place in the Earth's core, the second on the ocean-bottom, the third on the planet Altor, each of which a charming excuse for yet another magnificent set, another ballet performed by scantily-clad girls, and in general lots of shine and colour on stage, and music. Indeed it is easy for us today to forget that performance was the biggest thing in entertainment back in the days and the only place people could see such a spectacle of colour, noise, movement, - art, - on a large scale; yet I don't think that the fact that the story takes place in incredible locations is itself a sufficient excuse for the general shallowness of the entire play.
In this vein, I liked the fact that the edition included two reviews of the play performed in 1882, and I will conclude my review by quoting the end of the review by the Paris correspondent for the New York Times:
'And now, if you wish, an opinion of the merits of the "Journey Through the Impossible," I will say frankly that I have never seen anything more idiotically incoherent, or of which the dialogue is more pretentious. Under another name it is only a re-edition of "Pilules du Diable," the "Biche au Bois," the "Mille et Une Nuits," which again are only speaking versions of the old-fashioned pantomimes. George is Harlequin, Heva Columbine, Volsius the Good Genius, Valdemar a good-natured Clown, and Doctor Ox the Wicked Enchanter. These adventures and mishaps have been seen a hundred times before, and if the people did not talk they would be all the better liked. Yet, for all that, the piece is successful - an immense success and a success which will last for months, as panoramas nowadays are all the fashion. M. Paul Cleves has given proof of taste and of unrivaled prodigality, and I should not be surprised if the "Voyage a Travers l'Impossible" equaled in vogue the famous "Tour du Monde." Still, I think that it will prove to be M. Verne's "Song of the Swan"; That this will be the last trial of scientifico-fantastico-geographical dramas.'
The characters in the play could be called one-dimensional only with some effort. That perhaps is also not surprising, given that the gist of the play is its plot, but even the plot I found unsatisfactory. One of the reasons for that is that the storyline is not only disingenuous to the extreme, but also irritating in its moral implications if one cares to make them, but it's hard to not care because they are so obviously questionable:
Here is George Hatteras, grandson of a famous explorer whose heritage is kept secret from him, lest he be tempted to follow in his grandfather's steps and become an explorer himself. There is Eva, his fiancée, a 'good' character who would do anything to stop George from going on a journey and once he is on, to try to persuade him to go back. There we have the 'bad' doctor Ox, who wants to send George on a journey in order to separate him from Eva with whom Ox is in love, so in the entirety of his evil wickedness the doctor gives the characters a magic potion, and ta-da, they all find themselves on a journey through the impossible. The trio is accompanied by two clown-characters making unsuccessful attempts to be funny throughout the play, and Volsius, a 'good' version of Ox if you wish, seeming able to unproblematically make magic happen, who is there to help Eva to get George back from the journey. And there we all go, a romp through various scenes in three 'impossible' worlds which Ox reveals to George in the hope of making him go insane, whilst Eva and Volsious are unsuccessfully trying to talk him back while making sure on the side that he doesn't accidentally kill himself or who knows what. And this all lasts, until when it's time for the play to finish, and so Eva in a venturous spirit summons up the brilliance to reveal to Ox that if he lets anything bad happen to George, she will hate him, and so that complete freak of a bastard, the doctor, crushed under the enormous power of love, no longer tempts George to keep journeying and, suddenly, without any explanation offered, we are all back in the room where the play started, the happy ending being that George, now 'sane', promises Eva that he will no longer attempt any journeys, that he only wants to love her.
I couldn't hear my comment over the sound of facepalms, so no further comment I believe here necessary, except the one that perhaps the ending of the play is indeed happy, for Eva didn't deserve the doctor who was too good for a woman who wants her pet-husband to never show his nose out of the house, passing this as 'love' on top of that, while she would make a good couple with a man who is apparently nothing like his grandfather and so incompetent he cannot handle both the adventure and the girl at the same time, and anyway he needs just too much help to survive and forgets his passion the minute a third person stops tempting him. In short: that was a close escape, Ox, next time choose some people who like to actually think. Anyhow.
Another reason I didn't like the play beside the storyline is that the rest of it, the 'filler' - although perhaps the storyline is the real filler here - is also quite boring with not a single scene that struck me as original, nor a line as memorable. Here we have 3 acts, the first taking place in the Earth's core, the second on the ocean-bottom, the third on the planet Altor, each of which a charming excuse for yet another magnificent set, another ballet performed by scantily-clad girls, and in general lots of shine and colour on stage, and music. Indeed it is easy for us today to forget that performance was the biggest thing in entertainment back in the days and the only place people could see such a spectacle of colour, noise, movement, - art, - on a large scale; yet I don't think that the fact that the story takes place in incredible locations is itself a sufficient excuse for the general shallowness of the entire play.
In this vein, I liked the fact that the edition included two reviews of the play performed in 1882, and I will conclude my review by quoting the end of the review by the Paris correspondent for the New York Times:
'And now, if you wish, an opinion of the merits of the "Journey Through the Impossible," I will say frankly that I have never seen anything more idiotically incoherent, or of which the dialogue is more pretentious. Under another name it is only a re-edition of "Pilules du Diable," the "Biche au Bois," the "Mille et Une Nuits," which again are only speaking versions of the old-fashioned pantomimes. George is Harlequin, Heva Columbine, Volsius the Good Genius, Valdemar a good-natured Clown, and Doctor Ox the Wicked Enchanter. These adventures and mishaps have been seen a hundred times before, and if the people did not talk they would be all the better liked. Yet, for all that, the piece is successful - an immense success and a success which will last for months, as panoramas nowadays are all the fashion. M. Paul Cleves has given proof of taste and of unrivaled prodigality, and I should not be surprised if the "Voyage a Travers l'Impossible" equaled in vogue the famous "Tour du Monde." Still, I think that it will prove to be M. Verne's "Song of the Swan"; That this will be the last trial of scientifico-fantastico-geographical dramas.'
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 16, 2022
Fast and fun story that incorporates some of Verne’s best known characters. Definitely a worth while read if you can find a copy.
I would only recommend this is you’ve read Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, and a Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or if you’re familiar with the characters.
I would only recommend this is you’ve read Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, and a Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or if you’re familiar with the characters.
February 18, 2017
A unique work from my favorite author. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
October 22, 2013
The play "Journey Through the Impossible" features Otto Lidenbrock ("Journey to the Center of the Earth"), Captain Nemo ("20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Mysterious Island" ), Michel Ardan ("From the Earth to the Moon", "Around the Moon") and a passel of other of Verne's fictional personalities (plus some more subtle references to less "major" Verne characters as explained in the informative footnotes).
"Journey Through the Impossible" was intended as a true spectacle (done in collaboration with noted playwright Adolphe d'Ennery). Thus, Verne pulls out all of the stops and uses all of his devices. In so doing, the protagonists journey farther than ever before. It's perhaps the wildest of all of his stories.
An absolute must for serious fans of Jules Verne's science fiction.
"Journey Through the Impossible" was intended as a true spectacle (done in collaboration with noted playwright Adolphe d'Ennery). Thus, Verne pulls out all of the stops and uses all of his devices. In so doing, the protagonists journey farther than ever before. It's perhaps the wildest of all of his stories.
An absolute must for serious fans of Jules Verne's science fiction.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews