Voyages extraordinaires


The Voyages extraordinaires is a collection or sequence of novels and short stories by the French writer Jules Verne. The cycle features some of Verne's best known titles, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Around the World in Eighty Days and The Mysterious Island.
Fifty-four of these novels were originally published between 1863 and 1905, during the author's lifetime, and eight additional novels were published posthumously. The posthumous novels were published under Jules Verne's name, but had been extensively altered or, in one case, completely written by his son Michel Verne.
According to Verne's editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel, the goal of the Voyages was "to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, historical and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format... the history of the universe."
Verne's meticulous attention to detail and scientific trivia, coupled with his sense of wonder and exploration, form the backbone of the Voyages. Part of the reason for the broad appeal of his work was the sense that the reader could gain real knowledge of geology, biology, astronomy, paleontology, oceanography, history and the exotic locations and cultures of the world through the adventures of Verne's protagonists. This great wealth of information distinguished his works as "encyclopedic novels".
The first of Verne's novels to carry the title Voyages Extraordinaires was The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, which was the third of all his novels.
The works in this series are adventure stories, some with overt science fiction elements or elements of scientific romance.

Theme

In a late interview, Verne affirmed that Hetzel's ambitious commission had become the running literary theme of his novel sequence:
However, Verne made clear that his own object was more literary than scientific, saying "I do not in any way pose as a scientist" and explaining in another interview:

Publication

In the system developed by Hetzel for the Voyages Extraordinaires, each of Verne's novels was published successively in several different formats. This resulted in as many as four distinct editions of each text : Éditions pré-originales : Serialization in a periodical, usually Hetzel's own biweekly . The serialized installments were illustrated by artists on Hetzel's staff, such as Édouard Riou, Léon Benett, and George Roux.Éditions originales : complete unillustrated texts published in book form at 18mo size. Cartonnages dorés et colorés : Complete editions of the text, published in grand in-8º book form with a lavishly decorated cover. These deluxe editions, designed for Christmas and New Year's markets, include most or all of the illustrations from the serializations.

Continued appeal

Jules Verne remains to this day the most translated science fiction author in the world as well as one of the most continually reprinted and widely read French authors. Though often scientifically outdated, his Voyages still retain their sense of wonder that appealed to readers of his time, and still provoke an interest in the sciences among the young.
The Voyages are frequently adapted into film, from Georges Méliès' fanciful 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune, to Walt Disney's 1954 adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, to the 1956 version of "Around the World in 80 Days", starring Cantinflas and David Niven, then 2004 version of Around the World in 80 Days starring Jackie Chan. Their spirit has also continued to influence fiction to this day, including James Gurney's Dinotopia series and "softening" Steampunk's dystopianism with utopian wonder and curiosity.

List of novels

Most of the novels in the Voyages series were first serialized in periodicals, usually in Hetzel's Magasin d'Éducation et de récréation. Almost all of the original book editions were published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in octodecimo format, often in several volumes.
What follows are the 55 novels published in Verne's lifetime with the most common English-language title for each novel. The dates given are those of the first publication in book form.
  1. Five Weeks in a Balloon
  2. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras
  3. Journey to the Center of the Earth
  4. From the Earth to the Moon
  5. In Search of the Castaways
  6. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
  7. Around the Moon
  8. A Floating City
  9. The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa
  10. The Fur Country
  11. Around the World in Eighty Days
  12. The Mysterious Island
  13. The Survivors of the Chancellor
  14. Michael Strogoff
  15. Off on a Comet
  16. The Child of the Cavern
  17. Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen
  18. The Begum's Millions
  19. Tribulations of a Chinaman in China
  20. The Steam House
  21. The Giant Raft
  22. Godfrey Morgan
  23. The Green Ray
  24. Kéraban the Inflexible
  25. The Vanished Diamond
  26. The Archipelago on Fire
  27. Mathias Sandorf
  28. The Wreck of the "Cynthia"
  29. The Lottery Ticket
  30. Robur the Conqueror
  31. North Against South
  32. The Flight to France
  33. Two Years' Vacation
  34. Family Without a Name
  35. The Purchase of the North Pole
  36. César Cascabel
  37. Mistress Branican
  38. The Carpathian Castle
  39. Claudius Bombarnac
  40. Foundling Mick
  41. Captain Antifer
  42. Propeller Island
  43. Facing the Flag
  44. Clovis Dardentor
  45. An Antarctic Mystery
  46. The Mighty Orinoco
  47. The Will of an Eccentric
  48. The Castaways of the Flag
  49. The Village in the Treetops
  50. The Sea Serpent
  51. The Kip Brothers
  52. Travel Scholarships
  53. A Drama in Livonia
  54. Master of the World
  55. Invasion of the Sea
The posthumous additions to the series, extensively altered by Verne's son Michel, but the original editions are as follows.
  2. The Lighthouse at the End of the World
  3. The Golden Volcano
  4. The Chase of the Golden Meteor
  5. The Beautiful Yellow Danube
  6. In Magellania
  7. The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz
  8. ''Study Trip''

Short stories

The Voyages series includes a short story collection containing 4 short stories and 10 individual short stories that accompanied one of the novels in the series.
The short story collection is:Doctor Ox
And the individual short stories:
  1. The Blockade Runners
  2. Martin Paz
  3. A Drama in Mexico
  4. The Mutineers of the Bounty
  5. Ten Hours Hunting
  6. Frritt-Flacc
  7. Gil Braltar
  8. "The Humbug"
  9. "Le Rat goutteux"
  10. ''"Mr. Ray Sharp and Miss Me Flat"''

Classification

In promotional materials for the series, Verne's editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel classified the Voyages Extraordinaires in several groups, mostly following geographic criteria: