Works of Jules Verne (Volume 1) online

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A DANGEROUS MOMENT

The "Victoria" was flying almost above the troop of horsemen who
were riding with loose reins after Joe. The doctor in the front of the
car held the ladder extended, ready to launch it at the proper moment.
Joe still kept about fifty feet ahead of his pursuers. The "Victoria"
passed them.

"Attention! " cried Samuel to Kennedy.

"I am ready."

"Joe, look out !" cried the doctor in a ringing voice, as he threw
down the ladder, whose lowest rounds dragged up the dust as they fell.

At the doctor's summons, Joe, without checking his horse, turned
round. The ladder was close to him, and in a moment he had caught
it.— Page 367.



Vol. 1.



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WORKS



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EDITED BY



CHARLES F. HORNE. Ph.D.

Professor of English, College of the City of New York;
Author of "The Technique of the Novel," etc.



^.




Vincent Parke and Company



NEW YORK



t • • •

• • • •



LONDON



V ' ;



Copyright, 1911,
BY Vincent Parkk and Company.



JULES VERNE



f'



â– *^ HE expander of horizons," is what a
TT^ ^ noted critic called Jules Verne. He
if' was the prophet, the foreseer and
AfaigiiT-.- foreteller of our great mechanical



-v«*



Vv»-



age. He belongs to-day not to France, but to the
world. Widely as his works have been read in his
own country, their popularity has been yet wider
in America and England. Much as he has been
honored at home, even higher glory has been ac-
corded liim, we are told, in far Japan. His books
have been translated not only into all the usual
languages, but into Hebrew, Japanese, Polish and
even Arabic.

Verne was a universal
teacher, both of youth and
age. From him the whole
world garnered knowledge
without effort; for all lis-
tened with pleasure while he
spun his tales. He was a su-
preme master of imagination,




vn



Jules Verne



JULES VERNE

and without imagination man is nothing; for all
greatness is but a phase of imagination. It is the
creative force of the world. Under Verne's guid-
ance his readers travel in every land, examine every
mode of life and labor, view all the strangest won-
ders of the universe.

The educators of youth have been swift to recog-
nize the high value of the masterworks of tliis
mighty magician. His simpler tales are used as
text-books in our American schools, both in French
and English. And the conscience of the moralist
can here approve the eager pleasure of the reader,
and bid youth continue to bask in this glorious
light of wonder and adventure. There is not an
evil nor uncleanly line in all the volumes. Never
did anyone lay aside one of Verne's books without
being a better, broader, nobler human being be-
cause of their perusal.

Surely the time is ripe when a definitive edition
of the master's works should be given to American
readers. Jules Verne died in 1905; and, though
he left behind him in the hands of his Paris pub-
lishers an unusually large number of unissued
works, the last of these has now been given to the
public. Moreover we can now estimate his work
calmly, unconfused by the tumultuous and very
varying opinions pronounced upon it by the French
critics of his own day.

viii



JULES VERNE




Verne's Home



Their obituary reviews of
his work differed widely as to
its value. On the one hand,
the noted critic, Morel, in the
authoritative "Nouvelle Re-
vue" declared Verne to be the
leading educator and perhaps
the most read author of the
new twentieth century. At the
other extreme were the un-
signed assaults of those who
could only make a mock of
v/hat was too open and too honest for them to com-
prehend.

Verne was no intricate analyst, elaborating such
subtleties of thought and ethics as only subtle folk
can understand. He spoke for the great mass of
men, giving them such tales as they could follow,
upholding always such a standard of courage and
virtue, simple and high, as each of us can honor for
himself and be glad to set before his children.

It is not only "boy's literature" that began with
Verne. One might almost say that man's litera-
ture, the story that appeals to the business man,
the practical man, began then also. The great
French "Encyclopedic Universelle" sums up his
books by saj^ing, "They instruct a little, entertain
much, and overflow with life."



?^:.:Â¥^



IX



JULES VERNE

Jules Verne was the establisher of a new species
of story-telling, that which interweaves the most
stupendous wonders of science with the simplest
facts of human life. Our own Edgar Allan Poe
had pointed the way; and Verne was ever eager to
acknowledge liis indebtedness to the earlier master.
But Poe died; and it was Verne who went on in
book after book, fascinating his readers with clev-
erly devised mysteries, instructing and astonishing
them with the new discoveries of science, inspir-
ing them with the splendor of man's destiny.
When, as far back as 1872, his earl 5^ works were
"crowned" by the French Academy, its Perpetual
Secretary, M. Patin, said in his official address,
"The well-worn wonders of fairyland are here re-
placed by a new and more marvelous world, created
from the most recent ideas of science."

More noteworthy still is Verne's position as the
true, the astonishingly true, prophet of the discov-
eries and inventions that were to come. He was
far more than the mere creator of that sort of
scientific fairyland of which Secretary Patin spoke,
and with which so many later writers, Wells, Hag-
gard and Sir Conan Doyle, have since delighted us.
He himself once keenly contrasted his own methods
with those of Wells, the man he most admired
among liis many followers. Wells, he pointed out,
looked centuries ahead and out of pure imagination



JULES VERNE

embodied the unknowable that some day might
perchance appear. "Wliile I," said Verne, "base
my inventions on a groundwork of actual fact."
He illustrated tliis by instancing his submarine, the
Nautilus. "This," said he, "when carefully con-
sidered, is a submarine mechanism about which
there is nothing wholly extraordinary, nor beyond
the bounds of actual scientific knowledge. It rises
and sinks by perfectly well-known processes. . . .
Its motive force even is no secret; the only point
at which I have called in the aid of imagination is
in the application of this force, and here I have
purj)osely left a blank, for the reader to form liis
own conclusion, a mere technical hiatus."

So it comes that Verne's prophecies already
spring to realization on every side. He foresaw
and in his vivid way described not only the sub-
marine, but also, in his "Steam-house," the auto-
mobile, in liis "Robur the Conqueror," the aero-
plane. Navigable balloons, huge aerial machines
heavier than air, the telephone, moving pavements,
stimulation by oxygen, compressed air, compressed
food, all were existant among liis clear-sighted
visions. And to-day as we read those even bolder
prophecies, accounts that excited only the laughter
of his earlier critics, it is with ever-increasing won-
der as to wliich will next come true.

His influence has been tremendous, not only



XI



JULES VERNE



upon story-telling, but upon life. One French
commentator cries with profound admiration that
Verne "wholly changed the conversation of the
drawing-rooms." Another, with perhaps broader
understanding, declares that he revolutionized the
thought of the young men of Iiis earlier days. "He
taught us that the forces of nature, enemies to man
in his ignorance, stood ready to be our servants
once we had learned to master and control them."
For a writer so much read, Jules Verne has been
very little talked about. His personality became
submerged in his work. Moreover he was not a
Parisian, not a member of the mutual admiration
club which exists perforce in every artistic center,
where the same little circle of able men constantly
meeting, and writing one about the other, impress
all their names upon the public. Verne early with-
drew from the turmoil and clamor of the French
capital to dwell in peace at Amiens. To ignore
Paris, to withdraw deliberatelv from its already

won caresses! Could anv
crime have been more heinous
in Parisian eyes? It explains
the rancor of at least some of
the French critics in their at-
titude toward our author.

Known thus only through
his books, yet by them known




Verne's Tower Workroom



Xll



JULES VERNE




so universall}^ Verne has al-
ready become a myth. Leg-
ends have gathered around
his form. In Germany writers
have ponderously explained
— and believed — that he was
not a Frenchman at all, but a -^
Jew, a native of Russian Po-
land. They gave him a birth-
place, in the town of Plock,
and a name, Olshewitz, of
which Vergne or Verne was The saim Michel

only a French translation, since both words mean
the alder tree. In Italy about 1886 the report
became widespread that he was dead, or rather that
he had never lived, that he was only a name used
in common by an entire syndicate of authors, wlio
contributed their best works and best efforts to
popularize the series of books whose profits they
shared in common. Even in France itself men
learned to say, for the sake of the antithesis, that
tliis, the greatest of all wnters of travel, had gained
all his knowledge out of books and never himself
had traveled beyond Amiens.

Lest to American readers also, the man, the
truly lovable man, Verne, should become wholly
lost behind his books, let us make brief record of
liim here. He was born in Nantes, the chief city of



XUl



JULES VERNE

Brittany, on February 8, 1828. His father was
a lawyer in good circumstances, and Jules' early
training was also for the law. The chief pleasure
of his youth lay in a battered old sailing boat, in
which he and his brother Paul, taking turns at
being captain, played all the stories of the sea, and
explored every reach of the River Loire, even down
to the mighty ocean. That sloop still echoes through
his every book.

Sent to Paris to complete his studies, Jules soon
drifted away from the law. He became part and
parcel of all the Bohemian life of Paris, a student,
artist, author, poet, clerking all day that he might
live and dream and scribble all the night. A typi-
cal "son of the boulevards," they called him in
those days. He became a close friend of the
younger Dumas, and was introduced to his friend's
yet more celebrated father, the Alexander Dumas
of romance. The father guided and advised him;
the son collaborated with him in his first literary
success — if literarj^ it can be called — a little one act
comedy in verse, "Broken Straws," produced at the
"Gymnase" in 1850. Then came librettos for comic
operas, short stories for little-known story papers;
and young Verne was fairly launched upon a ca-
reer of authorship.

In 1857 he journeyed eighty miles to Amiens,
so the story is told, to act as best man at the wed-



XIV



JULES VERNE

ding of a friend. Before tliis he had long vowed
himself to a single life. Art, he said, and woman
were two different mistresses, and no man could
truly serve both. But at Amiens he arrived late,
the bridal party was already gone, and no one was
left to receive the laggard but a sister of the bride,
a young widow who had stayed at home to keep
from casting her gloom upon the festivity. Within
the hour both Jules and the young widow, Mme.
de Vianne, had abandoned all their former views,
and recognized each other as life companions. This
sounds like another legend; but it seems well
vouched for. Verne married Mme. de Vianne "with-
in the year.

In 1860 or shortly after, Verne met the one other
person who was most to influence liis life, the great
Parisian publisher, Hetzel, who had issued the
works of Hugo, of Georges Sand, and of DeMus-
set. Hetzel, who had been in exile in Brussels,
returned to Paris in 1860: and our author soon be-
gan writing for him. The two became warm friends.

Verne's first full length novel or story was issued
by Hetzel in 1863. This epoch-making book was
"Five Weeks in a Balloon." In it the vounsf au-
thor attained for the first time his characteristic
vein of explorations into unknown regions, inter-
mingling the new science with adventures and hero-
ism as old as man.

XV



JULES VERNE



The book was a tremendous success. The whole
world read, and was delighted. Hetzel started a
"Magazine of Education and Recreation," which
was chiefly supported by Verne's writings. Author

and publisher made a twen-
ty year contract, under
which Verne was to pro-
duce two books a year; and
being thus assured of finan-
cial independence, Verne in
1870 withdrew with his wife
to her native Amiens. There
he lived in quietude for
over thirty-five years, until
his death.

The legend that he never
quitted Amiens at all is,
however, false. Twice at
least he journeyed to the British Isles, and once,
though before his retirement to Amiens, to
America and once to Scandinavia. Moreover
his youthful love for sailing clung to him. In
a little ten ton boat, he cruised much in sum-
mer along the French coast; and later in life
he owned a handsome hundred foot steam yacht,
the "Saint Michel," in which he visited Mediterra-
nean Africa, Malta and much of the European
coast.




Verne's Tombstone



XVI



JULES VERNE

Chiefly, however, Verne's later life was devoted
to his books, and to the civic world of Amiens. He
was a member of the town council, an active and
earnest member, who won the devoted regard of
his fellow townsmen.

He and the grand cathedral of Amiens were the
city's twin celebrities, their pictures standing side
by side in shop-windows and decorating postal
cards. The Verne homestead was on one of the
principal boulevards, a handsome house with, at
its rear, a tow^er, the topmost room of wliich formed
a secluded den where the writer worked.

In this tower room, he continued steadily pro-
ducing his stories. As far back as 1872 he had been
a candidate for the celebrated French Academy,
with strong chances of election. But the Academy,
while it crowned Ms individual books, refused mem-
bership to their author, though after that first can-
didacy he in the course of liis later life watched the
entire membership of the Academy pass and be
renewed twice over. His friends, especially his
Amiens townfolk, declared that his exclusion was
due to Parisian jealousy, and that the Academy
lost far more honor than the author by ignoring
him. "Paris," said one of them, "had nothing
worthy of this great man. He sought a place for
work; Paris offers its great men only lounging
places."

xvii



JULES VERNE

Yet, in no spirit of unfciirness, we must admit
that Jules Verne's claim upon the Academy rather
decreased with added years. Most of his later books
by no means equal his earlier ones. A man over
seventy may well be pardoned if he no longer
writes with the fresh fanc}'^ and confident vigor of
thirty-five. To present all Verne's later work to
American readers would be fair neither to the
fame of the author nor to the pocket of the public.
Therefore a labor of selection has been necessary.
All the works that have made Jules Verne beloved,
all that present his imaginary inventions, his pro-
phecies of the future, every work that honest critics
have thought worth preserving, is included in this
edition. It presents not only those books crowned
by the French Academy, but all those crowned by
the verdict of that final judge, that best of judges
when long years run full, that judge to whom all
our work must be submitted in the end, the general
public.

To them this work is dedicated.



XVIIl



CONTENTS
Volume Onk

PAGB

Jui.Es Verne in

Introduction 1

A Drama in the Air 3

The Watch's Soul 21

A Winter in the Ice . . . . . .63

The Pearl of Lima 107

The Mutineers 159

Five Weeks in a Balloon 179



II^IvUSTRATlONS



Voi,ume; One






PAGB


A Dangerous Moment


Frontispiece


The Uprising . . . . ,


176


A Mysterious Rivai. . . , .


. 304



Til




INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME ONE

N this volume are included Verne's first master-
piece, " Five Weeks in a Balloon," and also all
such of his earlier stories as he himself
thought worth preserving. These he gathered
in later years, and had some of them reissued
by his Paris publishers.

"A Drama in the ^Air," was, as Verne himself tells us,
his first published story. It appeared soon after 18^0 in a
little-known local magazine called the " Musee des Families.'''
The tale, though somewhat amateurish, is very character-
istic of the master's later style. In it we can see, as it were,
the germ of all that was to follow, the interest in the new
advances of science, the dramatic story, the carefully col-
lected knowledge of the past, the infusion of instruction
amid the excitement of the tale.

Similarly we find " A Winter in the Ice " to be a not un-
worthy predecessor of " The Adventures of Captain Hat-
teras " and all the author's other great books of adventure
in the frozen world. Here, at the first attempt, a vigorous
and imp. ^ssive story introduces ns to the northland, thor-
oughly imderstood, accurately described, vividly appreciated
and pictured forth in its terror and its mystery.

" The Pearl of Lima " opens the way to all those stories
of later novelists wherein some ancient kingly race, some
forgotten civilization of Africa or America, reasserts itself
in the person of some spectacular descendant, tragically
matching its obscure and half-demonic pozvers against the
might of the modern world. " The Mutineers " inaugurates
our author's favorite geographical device. It describes a
remarkable and little-knozvn country by having the char-
^acters of the story travel over it on some anxious errand,
tracing their progress step by step.



2 INTRODUCTION

Thus, of these five early tales, " The Watch's SouV is
the only one differing sharply from Verne's later work. It
is allegorical, supernatural, depending not upon the scientific
marvels of the material world, but upon the direct inter-
position of supernal powers.

" Five Weeks in a Balloon," the last and by far the most
important story in this volume, is Verne's first complete and
accepted masterpiece. This book, published in i86^ with-
out preliminary display, made the author instantly a central
^figure in the literary world. Like Byron he awoke one
morning and found himself famous.

Verne told his friends that before writing this book, he
had no knowledge whatever of practical ballooning. In-
deed the balloon was, to his view, quite a secondary part of
the tale. Always an omnivorous reader of works of travel,
he conceived the idea of writing into one book the descrip-
tions of parts of Africa gathered from the accounts of the
great explorers. These men he regarded as heroes of the
highest type, zvorthy of the most distinguished honor; and
he sought to honor them.

As he worked over the tale, the possibilities of scientific
and even more of dramatic interest to be gained from the
balloon, appealed to him more and more. To his friends he
confided thut he had conceived an idea or rather a combina-
tion of ideas by the publication of which he hoped he might
achieve real fame.

He was right. " Five Weeks in a Balloon " was unique
in the literature of the day. Its success was as immediate
and tremendous as it was deserved. The book is painstak-
ingly accurate in its following of the descriptions of the ex-
plorers, a truly valuable piece of geographical work. It is
almost inspired in its deductions as to the probable character
of the unknown land beyond their travels, its descriptions
of that mysterious heart of Africa zvhich even yet is largely
unexplored. In the handling of the fortunes of the balloon
and the balloonists, the elements of drama and suspense, the
book is an acknowledged masterpiece.




A Drama in the Air



N the month of September, 185 — , I arrived
at Frankfort-on-the-Main. My passage
through the principal German cities had been
brilliantly marked by balloon accents; but as
yet no German had accompanied me in my
car, and the fine experiments made at Paris
by MM, Greene, Eugene Godard, and Poitevin had not
tempted the grave Teutons to essay aerial voyages.

But scarcely had the news of my approaching ascent
spread through Frankfort, than three of the principal
citizens begged the favor of being allowed to ascend with
me. Two days afterwards we were to start from the Place
de la Comedie. I began at once to get my balloon ready.
It was of silk, prepared with gutta percha; and its volume,
which was three thousand cubic yards, enabled it to ascend
to the loftiest heights.

The day of the ascent was that of the great September
fair, which attracts so many people to Frankfort. Lighting
gas, of perfect quality and great lifting power, had been
furnished me, and about eleven o'clock the balloon was
filled; but only three-quarters filled, — an indispensable pre-
caution, for, as one rises, the atmosphere diminishes in
density, and the fluid enclosed within the balloon, acquiring
more elasticity, might burst its sides. My calculations told
me exactly the quantity of gas necessary to carry up my com-
panions and myself.

We were to start at noon. The impatient crowd which
pressed around the enclosed square, overflowing into the
contiguous streets, and covering the houses from the ground-
floor to the slated gables, presented a striking scene.

I carried three hundred pounds of ballast in bags; the car,
quite round, four feet in diameter, was comfortably ar-
ranged; the hempen cords which supported it stretched
symmetrically over the upper hemisphere of the balloon; the

3



4 A DRAMA IN THE AIR

compass was in place, the barometer suspended in the circle
which united the supporting cords, and the anchor put in
order. All was now ready for the ascent.

Among those who pressed around the enclosure, I re-
marked a young man with a pale face and agitated features.
The sight of him impressed me. He was an eager spectator
of my ascents, whom I had already met in several German
cities. With an uneasy air, he closely watched the curious
machine, as it lay motionless a few feet above the ground;
and he remained silent among those about him.

Twelve o'clock came. The moment had arrived, but my
traveling companions did not appear.

I sent to their houses, and learnt that one had left for
Hamburg, another for Vienna, and the third for London.
Their courage had failed them at undertaking one of those
excursions which, thanks to the improvement in aeronautics
are free from all danger. As they formed, in some sort, a
part of the programme of the day, the fear had seized them
that they might be forced to execute it faithfully, and they
had fled far from the scene at the instant when the balloon
was being filled. Their heroism was evidently in inverse
ratio to their speed — in decamping.

The multitude, half deceived, showed not a little ill humor.
I did not hesitate to ascend alone. In order to re-establish
the equilibrium between the specific gravity of the balloon
and the weight which had thus proved wanting, I replaced
my companions by more sacks of sand, and got into the car.
The twelve men who held the balloon by twelve cords, let
these slip a little between their fingers, and the balloon rose
several feet higher. There was not a breath of wind, and
the atmosphere was so laden that it seemed to forbid the
ascent.

"Is everything ready?" I cried.

The men put themselves in readiness. A last glance told