Works of Jules Verne

Volume One

Volume Two

Volume Three

Volume Four

In Search of the Castaways

Volume Five

Volume Six

Volume Seven

Volume Eight

Volume Nine

Off on a Comet, The Underground City

Volume Ten

Dick Sands, Measuring a Meridian

Volume Eleven

The Five Hundred Millions of the Begum, The tribulations of a Chinamen in China, The Giant Raft (Part 1)

Volume Twelve

The Giant Raft (Part 2), The Steam House

Volume Thirteen

The Robinson Crusoe School, Star Of The South, The Purchase of the North Pole.

Volume Fourteen

Robur The Conqueror

The Master of the World

The Sphinx Of Ice

Volume Fifteen

The Exploration of the World.

Volume 1

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.

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 :: :: LONDON

Copyright, 1911,

by Vincent Parke and Company.

THE expander of horizons," is what a noted critic called Jules Verne. He was the prophet, the foreseer and foreteller of our great mechanical 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 accorded him, 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 listened with pleasure while he spun his tales. He was a supreme master of imagination, 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 guidance his readers travel in every land, examine every mode of life and labor, view all the strangest wonders of the universe.

The educators of youth have been swift to recognize the high value of the masterworks of this 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 because 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 publishers 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.

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

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 literature, the story that appeals to the business man, the practical man, began then also. The great French "Encyclopédie Universelle" sums up his books by saying, "They instruct a little, entertain much, and overflow with life."

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 Allen Poe had pointed the way; and Verne was ever eager to acknowledge his indebtedness to the earlier master. But Poe died; and it was Verne who went on in book after book, fascinating his readers with cleverly devised mysteries, instructing and astonishing them with the new discoveries of science, inspiring them with the splendor of man's destiny. When, as far back as 1872, his early 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 replaced 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 discoveries 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, Haggard 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 his many followers. Wells, he pointed out, looked centuries ahead and out of pure imagination embodied the unknowable that some day might perchance appear. "While I," said Verne, "base my inventions on a groundwork of actual fact." He illustrated this by instancing his submarine, the Nautilus. "This," said he, "when carefully considered, 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 purposely left a blank, for the reader to form his 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 submarine, but also, in his "Steam-house," the auto-mobile, in his "Robur the Conqueror," the aeroplane. Navigable balloons, huge aerial machines heavier than air, the telephone, moving pavements, stimulation by oxygen, compressed air, compressed food, all were existant among his 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 wonder as to which will next come true.

His influence has been tremendous, not only 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 his 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 withdrew from the turmoil and clamor of the French capital to dwell in peace at Amiens. To ignore Paris, to withdraw deliberately from its already

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

Known thus only through his books, yet by them known

so universally, Verne has already become a myth. Legends 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 Poland. They gave him a birthplace, in the town of Plock, and a name, Olshewitz, of which Vergne or Verne was 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, who 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 this, the greatest of all writers 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 him here. He was born in Nantes, the chief city of 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 typical "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 literary 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 career of authorship.

In 1857 he journeyed eighty miles to Amiens, so the story is told, to act as best man at the wed of a friend. Before this 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 within the year.

In 1860 or shortly after, Verne met the one other person who was most to influence his life, the great Parisian publisher, Hetzel, who had issued the works of Hugo, of Georges Sand, and of DeMusset. Hetzel, who had been in exile in Brussels, returned to Paris in 1860: and our author soon began 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 young author attained for the first time his characteristic vein of explorations into unknown regions, intermingling the new science with adventures and heroism as old as man.

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 twenty year contract, under which Verne was to produce two books a year; and being thus assured of financial 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 summer along the French coast; and later in life he owned a handsome hundred foot steam yacht, the "Saint Michel," in which he visited Mediterranean Africa, Malta and much of the European coast.

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 tower, the topmost room of which formed a secluded den where the writer worked.

In this tower room, he continued steadily producing 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 his individual books, refused membership to their author, though after that first candidacy he in the course of his 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."

Yet, in no spirit of unfairness, 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 fancy 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 prophecies 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.

CONTENTS Volume One

Illustrations

Volume One

A Drama in the Air

IN 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 ascents; 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 Comédie. 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 precaution, 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 companions 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 arranged; the hempen cords which supported it stretched symmetrically over the upper hemisphere of the balloon; the 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 remarked 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 me that I might go. "Attention!"

There was a movement in the crowd, which seemed to be invading the enclosure.

"Let go!"

The balloon rose slowly, but I experienced a shock which threw me to the bottom of the car.

When I got up, I found myself face to face with an unexpected fellow-voyager,—the pale young man.

"Monsieur, I salute you," said he, with utmost coolness.

"By what right—"

"Am I here? By the right which the impossibility of your getting rid of me confers."

I was amazed! His calmness put me out of countenance, and I had nothing to reply. I looked at the intruder but he took no notice of my astonishment.

"Does my weight disarrange your equilibrium, monsieur?" he asked. "You will permit me—" and without waiting consent, he picked up two bags and threw them into space.

"Monsieur," said I, taking the only course now possible, "you have come; very well, you will remain; but to me alone belongs the management of the balloon."

"Monsieur," said he, "your urbanity is French all over: it comes from my own country. I morally press the hand you refuse me. Make all precautions, and act as seems best to you. I will wait till you have done—"

"For what?"

"To talk with you."

The barometer had fallen to twenty-six inches. We were nearly six hundred yards above the city; but nothing betrayed the horizontal displacement of the balloon, for the mass of air in which it is enclosed goes forward with it. A sort of confused glow enveloped the objects spread out under us, and fortunately obscured their outline.

I examined my companion afresh. He was a man of thirty years, simply clad. The sharpness of his features betrayed an indomitable energy, and he seemed very muscular. Indifferent to the astonishment he created, he remained motionless, trying in the meantime to distinguish the objects below us.

"Miserable mist!" said he, after a few moments.

I did not reply.

"You owe me a grudge?" he went on. "Bah! I could not pay for my journey, and it was necessary to take you by surprise."

"Nobody asks you to descend, monsieur!"

"Eh, do you not know, then, that the same thing happened to the Counts of Laurencin and Dampierre, when they ascended at Lyons, on the 15th of January, 1784? A young merchant, named Fontaine, scaled the gallery, at the risk of capsizing the machine. He accomplished the journey, and nobody died of it!"

"Once on the ground, we will have an explanation," replied I, piqued at the light tone in which he spoke.

"Bah! Do not let us think of our return."

"Do you think, then, I shall not hasten to descend?"

"Descend!" said he, in surprise. "Descend? Let us begin by first ascending."

And before I could prevent it, two more bags had been thrown out of the car, without even having been emptied.

"Monsieur!" cried I, in a rage.

"I know your ability," replied the unknown quietly, "and your fine ascents are famous. But if Experience is the sister of Practice, she is also a cousin of Theory, and I have studied the aerial art long. It has got into my head!" he added sadly, falling into a silent reverie.

The balloon, having risen some distance farther, now become stationary. The unknown consulted the barometer and said, "Here we are, at eight hundred yards. Men are like insects. See! I think we should always contemplate them from this height, to judge correctly of their proportions. The Place de la Comédie is transformed into an immense ant-hill. Observe the crowd which is gathered on the quays; and the mountains also get smaller and smaller. We are over the Cathedral. The Main is only a line, cutting the city in two, and the bridge seems a thread thrown between the two banks of the river."

The atmosphere became somewhat chilly.

"There is nothing I would not do for you, my host," said the unknown. "If you are cold, I will take off my coat and lend it to you."

"Thanks," said I dryly.

"Bah! Necessity makes law. Give me your hand. I am your fellow-countryman; you will learn something in my company, and my conversation will indemnify you for the trouble I have given you."

I sat down, without replying, at the opposite extremity of the car. The young man drew a voluminous manuscript from his coat. It was an essay on ballooning.

"I possess," said he, "the most curious collection of engravings and caricatures extant concerning aerial manias. How people admired and scoffed at the same time at this precious discovery! We are happily no longer in the age in which Montgolfier tried to make artificial clouds with steam, or a gas having electrical properties, produced by the combustion of moist straw and chopped-up-wool."

"Do you wish to depreciate the talent of the inventors?" I asked, for I had resolved to enter into the adventure. "Was it not good to have proved by experience the possibility of rising in the air?"

"Ah, monsieur, who denies the glory of the first aerial navigators ? It required immense courage to rise by means of those frail envelopes which only contained heated air. But I ask you, has the aerial science made great progress since Blanchard's ascensions, that is, since nearly a century ago? Look here, monsieur."

The unknown took an engraving from his portfolio.

"Here," said he, "is the first aerial voyage undertaken by Pilâtre des Rosiers and the Marquis d'Arlandes, four months after the discovery of balloons. Louis XVI refused to consent to the venture, and two men who were condemned to death were the first to attempt the aerial ascent. Pilâtre des Rosiers became indignant at this injustice, and, by means of intrigues, obtained permission to make the experiment. The car, which renders the management easy, had not then been invented, and a circular gallery was placed around the lower and contracted part of the Montgolfier balloon. The two aeronauts must then remain motionless at each extremity of this gallery, for the moist straw which filled it forbade them all motion. A chafing-dish with fire was suspended below the orifice of the balloon; when the aeronauts wished to rise, they threw straw upon this brazier, at the risk of setting fire to the balloon, and the air, more heated, gave it fresh ascending power. The two bold travelers rose, on the 21st of November, 1783, from the Muette Gardens, which the dauphin had put at their disposal. The balloon went up majestically, passed over the Isle of Swans, crossed the Seine at the Conference barrier, and, drifting between the dome of the Invalids and the Military School, approached the Church of Saint Sulpice. Then the aeronauts added to the fire, crossed the Boulevard, and descended beyond the Enfer barrier. As it touched the soil, the balloon collapsed, and for a few moments buried Pilâtre des Rosiers under its folds."

"Unlucky augury," I said, interested in the story, which affected me nearly.

"An augury of the catastrophe which was later to cost this unfortunate man his life," replied the unknown sadly.

"Have you never experienced anything like it?"

"Never."

"Bah! Misfortunes sometimes occur unforeshadowed!" added my companion. He then remained silent.

We were drifting southward, and Frankfort had already passed from beneath us.

"Perhaps we shall have a storm," said the young man.

"We shall descend before that," I replied.

"Better to ascend. We shall escape it more surely." And two more bags of sand were hurled into space.

The balloon rose rapidly, and stopped at twelve hundred yards. I became colder; and yet the sun's rays, falling upon the surface, expanded the gas within, and gave it a greater ascending force.

"Fear nothing," said the unknown. " We have still three thousand five hundred fathoms of breathing air. Besides, do not trouble yourself about what I do."

I would have risen, but a vigorous hand held me to my seat. "Your name?" I asked.

"My name? What matters it to you?"

"I demand your name!"

"My name is Erostratus or Empedocles, whichever you choose!"

This reply was far from reassuring. The unknown, besides, talked with such strange coolness that I anxiously asked myself whom I had to deal with.

"Monsieur," he continued, "nothing original has been imagined since the physicist Charles. Four months after the discovery of balloons, this man had invented the valve which permits the gas to escape when the balloon is too full, or when you wish to descend; the car, which aids the management of the machine; the netting, which holds the envelope of the balloon, and divides the weight over its whole surface; the ballast, which enables you to ascend, and to choose the place of your landing; the india-rubber coating, which renders the tissue impermeable; the barometer, which shows the height attained. Lastly, Charles used hydrogen, which, fourteen times lighter than air, permits you to pene to the highest atmospheric regions, and does not expose you to the dangers of a combustion in the air. On the 1st of December, 1783, three hundred thousand spectators were crowded around the Tuilleries. Charles rose, and the soldiers presented arms to him. He traveled nine leagues in the air, conducting his balloon with an ability not surpassed by modern aeronauts. The king awarded him a pension of two thousand livres; for then they encouraged new inventions."

The unknown now seemed to be under the influence of considerable agitation.

"See, there is Darmstadt," said he, leaning over the car. "Do you perceive the château? Not very distinctly, eh? What would you have? The heat of the storm makes the outline of objects waver, and you must have a skilled eye to recognize localities."

"Are you certain it is Darmstadt?" I asked.

"I am sure of it. We are now six leagues from Frankfort."

"Then we must descend."

"Descend! You would not go down on the steeples," said the unknown, with a chuckle.

"No, but in the surburbs of the city."

"Well, let us avoid the steeples!"

So speaking, my companion seized some bags of ballast. I hastened to prevent him; but he overthrew me with one hand, and the unballasted balloon ascended to two thousand yards.

"Rest easy," said he, "and do not forget that Brioschi, Biot, Gay-Lussac, Bixio, and Barral ascended to still greater heights to make their scientific experiments."