29 . (p. 100) we sighted the Pomotou Islands, the old “dangerous group” of Bougainville: Count Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), a French navigator, wrote Description d‘un voyage autour du monde (Description of a Voyage Around the World), an account of his journey to Polynesia. He nicknamed the archipelago of Polynesia, which includes the Pomotou Islands, the “dangerous group,” partly because of the behavior of the island’s native inhabitants.
30 . (p. 101 ) Such is, at least, Darwin’s theory, who thus explains the formation of the atolls: Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist whose most famous work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), proposed the theory of natural selection and evolution. Darwin also wrote Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, referred to here. An atoll is a circular coral reef.
31 . (p. 102) “vanikoro.” ... It was the name of the islands on which La Perouse had been lost!: French navigator Jean-François de Galaup (1741-c.1788), known as La Pérouse, disappeared during an expedition to find the Northwest Passage. His disappearance was one of the great, unsolved mysteries of Verne’s day. It is thought he was murdered by natives of the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the Solomon Islands group in the western Pacific Ocean, which includes the island of Vanikoro, or Vanikolo.
32 . (p.169) “after the construction of the Suez Canal”: Construction of the Suez Canal, a ship canal through the Isthmus of Suez that connects the Red and Mediterranean Seas, was begun in 1859. The canal opened in 1869, the year before this novel was published.
33 . (p. 182) battle of Actium: Roman general Octavian defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra at the naval battle of Actium (31 B.C) to become the first Roman emperor. In one of history’s strangest and most important battles, Cleopatra’s fleet of sixty ships mysteriously turned tail and fled and Antony followed her, deserting his men.
34 (p. 187) Michelet: French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874) wrote La Mer (The Sea), a romantic history of the ocean reputed to be a source of many of Verne’s episodes and images. Michelet lost his position as professor of history at the Collège de France when he refused to swear allegiance to Louis-Napoleon (later Emperor Napoléon III).
35 . (p. 195) Still the same monk-like severity of aspect: At this point in the narrative, the translator of this edition leaves out two important paragraphs describing portraits hanging in Nemo’s room. The portraits, planted by Verne as a clue to Nemo’s character, include: Thaddeus Kosciusko (1746-1817), a Polish general and patriot who fought for Polish independence from Russia and Prussia; Markos Botsaris (c.1788-1823), a Greek patriot and a prominent figure in the Greek War of Independence from the Turks; Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847), an Irish nationalist leader known as the Liberator, who fought for Catholic Emancipation; George Washington (1732-1799), the American general who commanded the Continental armies during the Revolutionary War and the first president of the United States; Daniele Manin (1804-1857), an Italian patriot who fought against Austrian control; and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), president of the United States during the American Civil War. Also displayed in Nemo’s room is an etching of American abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859) hanging on the gallows, whom Verne called a martyr to the emancipation of the black race. Given the fact that Verne and his editor cut the explanation of Nemo’s motivations from the original manuscript (see the Introduction, pp. xxiv-xxv), this collection of portraits is a crucial key to understanding the captain’s character.
36 . (p. 206) ATLANTIS: A legendary civilization of mystery and fascination in Western culture, Atlantis may have been destroyed by flood or earthquake in ancient times. Scientists and archaeologists have been searching for Atlantis for hundreds of years. Verne goes on to list a few of the writers, historians, and philosophers who have described Atlantis, from Origen (c. A.D. 200), an early Greek Christian and defender of the Church, to the more modern Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon (1707-1788), a renowned French naturalist and author of the 44-volume Histoire Naturelle (Natural History).
37 . (p. 228) which altered the whole landscape like a diorama: Invented in the 1820s by French artists J. M. Daguerre and Charles-Marie Bouton, a diorama is a painting seen from a distance through a large opening that utilizes staggered canvases, transparent cloth, and a changing play of light to produce a three-dimensional scenic optical illusion.
38 8. (p. 235) Doubtless the Canadian did not wish to admit the presence of the South Pole: On the date of publication of this book, neither of the poles had been discovered. American explorer Robert Peary was the first to reach the North Pole in 1909; Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole two years later.
39 (P. 270) To paint such pictures, one must have the pen of the most illustrious of our poets, the author of “The Toilers of the Deep”: The best-known passage of French writer Victor Hugo’s 1866 novel (Travailleurs de la mer) is a battle between the hero and a giant octopus that lives in a cave in the English Channel. Verne greatly admired Hugo’s craft and art.
40 (p. 278) at a depth of more than 1,400 fathoms, that I saw the electric cable lying on the bottom.... In 1863, the engineers constructed another one, measuring 2,000 miles in length, and weighing 4,500 tons, which was embarked on the Great Eastern: In 1866 the Great Eastern completed laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable, linking Europe to America; it was the only ship large enough to carry enough cable to span the entire Atlantic. Verne sailed to New York aboard the Great Eastern in 1867, in his one and only trip to North America. He was impressed by the ship, which could carry 4,000 passengers. He used notes compiled on his voyage while writing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as well as his 1871 novel Une ville flottante (A Floating City).
41 (p. 281 ) “On the 11th and 12th Prairal of the second year”: Prairal is the period of time between May 20 and June 18 marked on the French revolutionary calendar. Acting against Catholic tradition, the National Convention adopted a new calendar, in which years were numbered not from the birth of Christ but from the day the French Republic was proclaimed, September 22, 1792. Months were given names that evoked their season. Prairal (prairie is French for “meadow”) was the ninth month of this new calendar, which was abandoned in 1806.
42 . (p. 290) that strange region where the foundered imagination of Edgar Poe roamed at will. Like the fabulous Gordon Pym, ... “that veiled human figure, ... which defends the approach to the pole”: Verne greatly admired American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s style and craft. Many Verne scholars believe Verne got the idea for his first novel Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) from Poe’s 1850 story “The Balloon Hoax.” Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838) ends with a description similar to the one Verne gives here. Poe’s 1841 short story “A Descent into the Maelstrom” has much in common with the final scene of Verne’s novel.
Inspired by
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Science Fiction
Oscar Wilde is said to have remarked, somewhat cryptically, that H. G. Wells was a “scientific Jules Verne.” It is hard to know who Wilde wished to slight more by his comment, but it has long been evident that Verne and Wells are the two progenitors of modern science fiction. Without these two seminal authors, scientific fiction—a genre that includes works by Kingsley Amis, Isaac Asimov, Anthony Burgess, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley, C. S. Lewis, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and J. R. R. Tolkien—would not exist as we know it today.