Journey to the Center of the Earth - Background Information

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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Background Information

Availability - Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18857

General Overview

Journey to the Center of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated with the variant titles A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and A Journey into the Interior of the Earth, is a classic science fiction novel written by French novelist Jules Verne. It was first published in French in 1864, then reissued in 1867 in a revised and expanded edition.


Snæfellsjökull

Professor Otto Lidenbrock is the tale's central figure, an eccentric German scientist who believes there are volcanic tubes that reach to the very center of the earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their Icelandic guide Hans rappel into Iceland's celebrated inactive volcano Snæfellsjökull, then contend with many dangers, including cave-ins, subpolar tornadoes, an underground ocean, and living prehistoric creatures from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (the 1867 revised edition inserted additional prehistoric material in Chaps. 37–39). Eventually, the three explorers are spewed back to the surface by an active volcano, Stromboli, located in southern Italy.


Stromboli

The category of subterranean fiction existed well before Verne. However, his novel's distinction lay in its well-researched Victorian science and its inventive contribution to the science-fiction subgenre of time travel. Verne's innovation was the concept of a prehistoric realm still existing in the present-day world. Journey inspired many later authors, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World, Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Pellucidar series, and J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit.

Main Characters

Professor Otto Lidenbrock: a hot-tempered geologist at the Johanneum Gymnasium with radical ideas.

Axel: Lidenbrock's nephew, a young student with more cautious ideas.

Hans Bjelke: Icelandic eiderduck hunter who hires on as their guide; resourceful and imperturbable.

Gräuben: Lidenbrock's goddaughter, with whom Axel is in love; from Vierlande (region southeast of Hamburg).

Martha: Lidenbrock's housekeeper and cook.

Publication Notes

The original French editions of 1864 and 1868 were issued by J. Hetzel et Cie, a major Paris publishing house owned by Pierre-Jules Hetzel.

The novel's first English edition, translated by an unknown hand and published in 1871 by the London house Griffith & Farran, appeared under the title A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and is now available at Project Gutenberg. A drastically rewritten version of the story, it adds chapter titles where Verne gives none, meanwhile changing the professor's surname to Hardwigg, Axel's name to Harry, and Gräuben's to Gretchen. In addition, many paragraphs and details are completely recomposed.

An 1877 London edition from Ward, Lock, & Co. appeared under the title A Journey into the Interior of the Earth. Its translation, credited to Frederick Amadeus Malleson, is more faithful than the Griffith & Farran version, though it, too, concocts chapter titles and modifies details. Its text is likewise available at Project Gutenberg.

There are two modern English translations: one by Frank Wynne with notes by Peter Cogman, published by Penguin Classics in 2009, and one by Matthew Jonas, published by Birch Hill Publishing in 2022. A prior Penguin Classics edition was translated by Robert Baldick and published in 1965.