Interesting facts from life are true. 40 interesting facts about the brilliant French writer Jules Verne. Check out interesting facts about Jules Verne

12.05.2017

In childhood, we all read the works of Jules Verne. A lively style, extraordinary adventures, fantastic discoveries - all this attracted boys and girls in such a way that it made them completely forget about the lessons. If the works of Jules Verne are so exciting, then what was his life like ?! Probably full of the most incredible events? Let's get acquainted with interesting facts from the life of Jules Verne and get an idea of ​​what kind of person he was.

1. Jules Verne was born in the small French city of Nantes in 1828. His father made a living by serving in the field of law. And, of course, he wished his son a similar career. After all, jurisprudence provided a small but stable income and a roof over your head.
2. Young Jules from childhood experienced an irresistible craving for adventure. So, at the age of 10 or 11, without the knowledge of his parents, he was hired on the schooner "Korali" as a cabin boy and almost sailed to the shores of India. The father managed to catch up with the ship and take the failed cabin boy home.
3. At first, Jules Verne obediently followed his father's recommendations for obtaining a law degree. Having studied as much as necessary in the seminary and lyceum, he then entered the legal profession. However, this did not attract the young man at all. He was interested in the theater and was busy thinking about how to move to Paris, where he could offer his works to some theater director (Jules began to write plays).
4. With difficulty persuading his father to agree to move to Paris and promising that he will continue his studies there, Jules moves to the capital, full of bright hopes. He creates many works for the theater, but in this area he is not lucky. For the sake of his father, he still finishes his studies, receives a diploma and tries to work first as a lawyer, then as a clerk, then as a tutor for students entering the law faculty. It's not working. There is nothing to live on, often you have to fast due to lack of money, but Jules begins to write.
5. One of his great works gets to the publisher Etzel, causing the latter to delight. From now on, Jules Verne can not worry about his future - Etzel signed a contract with him to write 2 novels a year. Science fiction and adventure novels began to quickly emerge from the young writer's pen.
6. How did Jules Verne work? Until the end of his life, he collected a huge card file, which included books and articles that told about the latest scientific discoveries. Intending to sit down for another novel, Jules Verne first studied everything related to the topic.
7. The grandiose success of Verne's works is also explained by the fact that they were based on personal impressions - the writer traveled most of his life. He traveled to Scandinavia, England, Scotland, New York, Algeria, the Netherlands and Denmark.
8. Jules Verne left 66 novels to posterity. And that's not all of his legacy. He wrote stories, articles, poems, vaudevilles and librettos (for the stage). His working day began at 5 am and ended at noon. 5-6 proofs were common for a writer. Sometimes it came to 9 proofs, in each of which he could rewrite entire chapters. Jules Verne was distinguished by a truly fantastic diligence!
9. Verne predicted the electric chair, the submarine, and the airplane. He confidently described interplanetary travel. He made his predictions based on knowledge of the latest scientific developments in a particular area.
10. More recently, the press leaked the news that a time capsule had been found, left by Jules Verne for posterity. It contains many documents to be read and analyzed. Curious about what Jules Verne wanted to talk to representatives of future generations?

Jules Verne lived an interesting life. Colossal life experience and craving for knowledge allowed him to create works that have become part of the treasury of world literature.

At the age of eleven, Jules almost fled to India, hiring as a cabin boy on the schooner Corali, but was stopped in time. Already a well-known writer, he admitted: "I must have been born a sailor and now every day I regret that a maritime career did not fall to my lot from childhood."

Jules Verne never visited Russia, but nevertheless in Russia (in whole or in part) the action of 9 of his novels unfolds:

In the land of furs (1873).

Michael Strogoff. Moscow - Irkutsk (1876).

Stubborn Keraban (1883).

Foundling from the lost "Cynthia" (1885). (co-authored by André Laurie)

Robur the Conqueror (1886).

Caesar Cascabel (1890).

Claudius Bombarnac. Notebook of a reporter about the opening of the great Trans-Asian Highway (From Russia to Beijing) (1892).

The Stories of Jean-Marie Cabidoulin (1901).

Drama in Livonia (1904).

Russians also appear as main characters in Verne's novels The Adventures of Three Russians and Three Englishmen in South Africa (1872) and Hector Servadac. Travels and adventures in the circumsolar world" (1877).

Jules Verne could be at his desk literally from dawn to dusk - from five in the morning to eight in the evening. During the day he managed to write one and a half printed sheets, which equals twenty-four book pages.

Wolfgang Holdbein wrote a continuation of the Nautilus stories with the Children of Captain Nemo book series.

In the 60s of the 19th century, the Russian Empire banned the publication of Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, in which spiritual censors found anti-religious ideas, as well as the danger of destroying trust in scripture and the clergy.

The prototype of Michel Ardant from the novel "From the Earth to the Moon" was a friend of Jules Verne - writer, artist and photographer Felix Tournachon, better known under the pseudonym Nadar.

The writer was inspired to write Around the World in Eighty Days by a magazine article proving that if a traveler has good means of transport, he can travel around the globe in eighty days. Verne also calculated that one could even win one day by using the geographical paradox described by Edgar Allan Poe in the novel Three Sundays in One Week.

American newspaper magnate Gordon Bennett asked Vern to write a story specifically for American readers - with a prediction of America's future. The request was granted, but the story, entitled “In the XXIX century. One day of an American journalist in 2889 ”, was never released in America.

In 1863, Jules Verne wrote the book "Paris in the 20th century", in which he described in detail the car, the fax machine and the electric chair. The publisher returned the manuscript to him, calling him an idiot.

The 16th release of the Fedora operating system, codenamed Verne, is named after the writer.

Jules Gabriel Verne (French Jules Gabriel Verne) was born on February 8, 1828 in Nantes, a French writer, one of the founders of science fiction, a classic of adventure literature. Member of the French Geographical Society. According to UNESCO, Jules Verne's books have been published in 148 languages ​​(according to other sources in 150 countries), and they are second in terms of translation in the world, second only to the works of Agatha Christie. An interesting fact: in 1863, Jules Verne wrote the book "Paris in the 20th century", in which he described in detail the car, skyscrapers, a fax machine and the electric chair. The publisher returned the manuscript to him, calling him an idiot.

At the age of eleven, Jules Verne tried to escape to India by hiring as a cabin boy on the schooner Corali, but was stopped. Having already become a famous writer, he admitted: “I must have been born a sailor and now every day I regret that a maritime career did not fall to my lot from childhood.”

Jules Verne was a very industrious writer and could be at his desk from five in the morning until eight in the evening. If he was comprehended by some kind of insight, then he sat and worked more. During the day he managed to write one and a half printed sheets (an average of twenty-four book pages).

If Jules Verne did not work at a desk, then he traveled a lot around the world, and visited many countries. He embodied a childhood dream: he had three own yachts with the name Saint-Michel (in honor of his son Michel and the patron saint of sailors Michael), on which since 1867 he constantly went on trips. Travel by sea contributed to inspiration. It was during such travels that he wrote most of his major novels (including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days). When the writer had money, he bought himself a bigger ship. So he named the second ship "Saint-Michel II", and a few years later he acquired the third ship "Saint-Michel III", which was a steam yacht, with a crew of ten people. The yacht allowed to go on long journeys. During his life, he traveled all over Scandinavia, Great Britain (an island, not the whole empire), including Scotland, the countries of the Mediterranean coast, and visited the USA.

Painting "Saint-Michel III" with Vesuvius in the background in 1884. (Jules Verne Museum in Nantes)

The maintenance of the yacht was too expensive, and according to the writer's grandson, Jean Jules-Verne, the voyage of 1884 brought "only grief." In addition, his wife led a secular life, and the writer kept her salon. A lot of money was also required to cover the unsuccessful business ventures of his son Michel. One of Michel's bankruptcies, threatening him with a debtor's prison, coincides in time with the sale of Saint-Michel III. The yacht was sold in 1885 for much less than Jules Verne expected to receive.

The writer was inspired to write Around the World in Eighty Days by a magazine article proving that if a traveler has good means of transport, he can travel around the globe in eighty days. Verne also calculated that one could even win one day by using the geographical paradox described by Edgar Allan Poe in the novel Three Sundays in One Week.

The prototype of Michel Ardant from the novel "From the Earth to the Moon" was Jules Verne's friend Nadar (Nadar), whose real name is Gaspard Felix Tournachon (French Gaspard-Fеlix Tournachon (04/06/1820 - 03/21/1910)) - French writer- novelist, journalist, photographer, cartoonist and balloonist.

The first work that Jules Verne created was the play Broken Straws. The play was staged at the famous Historical Theater of Alexandre Dumas, but, despite this, Jules Verne decided that dramaturgy was not for him and practically stopped writing plays. Perhaps there was also a mercantile interest: the play brought him a small profit.

Everything fantastic that Jules Verne created in his works was later invented. Scientists at discoveries relied on his work, and inventors took his ideas. By the way, in 1863, Jules Verne wrote the book "Paris in the 20th century" (which was found in the attic by his great-grandson Jean Verne), in which he described in detail the car, the fax machine and the electric chair. Also in this novel, he described skyscrapers in words and predicted an uncontrollable birth boom. The publisher returned the manuscript to him, considering it too provocative, calling it an idiot.

US newspaper magnate Gordon Bennett asked Vern to write a story specifically for American readers - with a prediction of America's future. This request was fulfilled by the writer, but the story, entitled “In the XXIX century. One Day of an American Journalist in 2889, was never released in the United States.

When the French Revolution began, in 1848, Jules Verne lived in Paris, and did not participate in the revolution, but watched with interest everything that was happening from the outside. “Fighting was intense on Thursday; at the end of my street the houses were hit by cannon fire,” he wrote to his mother during the riots that followed the coup in December 1851. The revolution gave him rich food for plots, and in the future he turned to this topic more than once in his novels.

The writer was married only once. Jules Verne married a twenty-six-year-old widow who already had two children. He met his wife Honorina (Greek "sad") in Amiens, at a friend's marriage ceremony. During the celebrations, Jules Verne was settled in the house of the bride's parents, where he met Honorine de Vian-Morel (born 1830). Verne fell in love and in January 1857, with the permission of her family, they were married. In this marriage, the writer had a son. Son Michel filmed his father's works, grandson Jean-Jules worked for forty years on a monograph about the life of a famous ancestor, and great-grandson Jean Verne became an opera singer. Jean, according to family legend, found that famous Jules Verne manuscript "Paris in the 20th century."

Jules Verne with his wife Honorine de Vian-Morel

Some sources claim that after the wedding, Verne was helped financially by his father and allocated 50 thousand francs. However, it is not. Despite the fact that he wrote plays for the Parisian theater and continued to work as a secretary, his income did not allow him to pay all the bills. Maintaining a wife and her two daughters is not the same as living alone. The wife's brother helped: he offered Verne to work as a stockbroker on the Paris Stock Exchange. To be able to continue writing, Jules now got up every day at 5 am, devoting, before work, a few hours of creativity.

Initially, Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a wealthy Pole who built his submarine only to take revenge on the Russians. But the publisher, who sold books in Russia, intervened and asked to change the data about the captain.

Jules Verne's first adventure novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was published in Russia, simultaneously with a French publishing house. The review for this novel, published in the Sovremennik magazine, was written by the novel Five Weeks in a Balloon, which not only made him famous, but also helped to conclude a big contract with a publishing house. The writer became financially independent.

Many people think that Jules Verne's novels are independent works, but this is not entirely true. In the early 1860s, Jules Verne met Pierre-Jules Etzel, a French publisher and magazine editor-in-chief who helped the writer publish his first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon. This novel marked the beginning of Voyages Extraordinaires, a series of dozens of books written by Verne and published by Etzel. Most of these novels (including the famous "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea") were first published in installments in Etzel's journal and only then published in book form.

Beginning in 1863, Jules Verne wrote 2 books for Etzel annually. The contract with the publisher provided him with a steady income for several decades. From 1863 to 1905 Verne published 54 travel, adventure, history, science and technology novels for the Voyages Extraordinaires series. At the same time, the publisher Etzel discussed characters and plots with the writer until his death in 1886. The writings of Jules Verne were not limited to this series. In total, he wrote 65 novels. Some of them were published only after the death of the writer.

The novels "Flight to the Moon" and "Around the Moon" still cause many readers to ask the question: "How could he know" this "?!" Everyone who read these works can remember that aluminum was used in the construction of Columbiad and Apollo (at the time the novel was written, this metal was so rare that it was used to make jewelry for women, and to Mendeleev for the discovery of the "Mendeleev's table" (1869 d.) was awarded a cup of this metal. By the way, about Mendeleev, he, like Jules Verne, was born on February 8 (1834) The main block of Apollo 11 had its own name "Columbia". The crews included three astronauts. Compare , also surnames in reality and in books: Barbicane-Nicole-Ardant on Columbiad and Borman-Lovell-Anders on Apollo 8!) Launch site - Florida peninsula. The landing site is the Pacific Ocean.

It is rightly said that there is nothing stronger than an idea. At the time when Jules Verne writes and publishes his novels about flights to the moon, in the town of Kaluga, a modest teacher of the diocesan women's gymnasium Konstantin Tsiolkovsky carefully rereads the novel "From the Earth to the Moon", making notes and calculations. He rejects the idea of ​​a manned cannon projectile, writes: "The skyship should be like a rocket."

Many designers of spaceships and rockets, and the first cosmonauts and astronauts, considered the books of Jules Verne to be desktop. For the popularization of the achievements of science and the brilliant talent of the science fiction writer, grateful mankind immortalized the name of Jules Verne by naming a large crater in the "Sea of ​​Dreams" on the far side of the Moon, the European Space Agency decided to make the ATV cargo ships sent to the International Space Station "named", the most the first was named Jules Verne. He flew in 2008.

In honor of the writer, the 16th release of the Fedora operating system (a distribution of the GNU / Linux operating system) is named under the code name Verne. Many, perhaps, will ask themselves the question: what does Jules Verne and computer technology and the Internet have to do with it? In one of his works, the writer mentioned a group of mechanical calculators (similar to modern computers) that could communicate with each other over a network (like the Internet).

The later works of the writer are imbued with the fear that science will be used for criminal purposes. They were not successful with readers. The writer also had gloomy forecasts. In the novel Five Hundred Million Begums, the German professor Schulze becomes the anti-hero, who dreams of world domination and nationalist ideas. To achieve his goals, this professor creates a giant weapon that shoots projectiles with poisonous gas. The novel was finished in 1878. Before the first use of chemical warfare agents, 37 years remained, and Hitler came to power, as you know, on January 30, 1933.

In the 1860s, the publication of Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth was banned in the Russian Empire. The fact is that "spiritual censors" found anti-religious ideas, as well as "the danger of destroying trust in the Holy Scriptures and the clergy."

But not only in the Russian Empire banned his books. Unfortunately, many English-language publishers considered his science fiction books for teenagers and addressed these novels to children. As a result, translators often changed texts, simplifying the narrative, shortening long descriptions, and summing up the dialogues. In some cases, everything that could be interpreted as criticism of the UK was removed from the text. Such "translations" still make up a large part of Jules Verne's publications in English.

In Russia (partially or completely), the action of 9 novels by Jules Verne takes place, although he has never been there: “In the country of furs” (1873); Michael Strogoff. Moscow - Irkutsk "(1876); "Stubborn Keraban" (1883); "Foundling with the deceased" Cynthia (1885) (co-authored with André Laurie); Robur the Conqueror (1886); "Caesar Cascabel" (1890); Claudius Bombarnac. Reporter's Notebook on the Opening of the Great Trans-Asian Highway (From Russia to Beijing)" (1892); "The Stories of Jean-Marie Kabidoulin" (1901) and Drama in Livonia (1904) - the territory was then part of the Russian Empire, and Russians also appear as the main characters in such novels by Jules Verne as "The Adventures of Three Russians and Three Englishmen in the South Africa" ​​(1872) and "Hector Servadak. Travels and adventures in the circumsolar world" (1877).

The writer made an attempt to get to Russia, but in 1881 a strong storm forced the captain of the yacht to abandon the course to St. Petersburg.

Perhaps unrequited love helped to create an outstanding writer from the boy. The legend says that when the young Jules Verne was taken off the ship, and they began to ask why he decided to do this, the boy said that in addition to the desire for wandering, he wanted to bring coral beads from distant lands to his beloved, cousin. He hoped that she would then pay attention to him. Carolina Tronson did not reciprocate, and at the age of 12, Verne began writing poetry, trying to replace the beads with beautiful lines. As he grew older, he increasingly used poetry as an outlet for his burgeoning romantic feelings, accompanying poetry with gifts and dance invitations. But Caroline was adamant. In 1847, when Jules Verne was 19 and she was 20, she married a man twenty years her senior. Vern was heartbroken. And perhaps in order to get away from this state, he plunged into poetry, and later into prose.

Shortly after Caroline Tronson's marriage, Verne Sr. took advantage of his son's depression and persuaded him to move to Paris to study law. The father wanted Jules Verne to become a lawyer, and Jules graduated from the Faculty of Law in 1851. But even during his studies, he did not give up writing and was a regular at the literary salon, where he met the editor of the magazine Pitre-Chevalier and the famous Alexandre Dumas, who helped him get a job as a secretary in the theater. Pitre-Chevalier published his first stories, which allowed the future celebrity to have a small but stable means of living. Then his father tried to forcefully transfer his legal practice in Nantes to Jules Verne (he gave ultimatums in letters and threatened to cut his salary), but Verne Jr. by this time had already firmly decided to deal only with literature.

Jules Verne at 25

In March 1886, the twenty-year-old nephew of the writer Gaston fell into aggression, and when Jules Verne returned home, Gaston shot him twice with a pistol. Fortunately, the writer survived, but the second bullet fired by Gaston hit him in the left leg. After the incident, Gaston was examined and sent to a psychiatric hospital. The diagnosis is still unknown, but most researchers believe that he suffered from paranoia or schizophrenia. Vern never recovered from the attack. The bullet badly injured his left leg, and the writer limped for the rest of his life, and diabetes complicated the healing process. A secondary infection left him with a noticeable limp that persisted until his death. It is also sad that since then Jules Verne has not traveled anymore, and as it was written earlier, in this publication it was in the travels that the writer was most inspired.

From the age of 20, Jules Verne experienced sudden bouts of severe abdominal pain. In letters to family members, he often reported excruciating stomach cramps. He never received an accurate diagnosis from the doctors. To ease the pain, the writer experimented with different diets (for example, he ate only eggs and dairy products). Modern researchers believe that the writer could have had colitis or a digestive disorder associated with it. But even more disturbing than the abdominal pains were episodes of facial paralysis, of which there were five in a lifetime (when one side of the face suddenly became motionless). After the first case, doctors performed electrical stimulation of the facial nerve, but five years later the writer had a new attack, and then three more. In modern times, researchers have concluded that he had Bell's palsy, a temporary form of unilateral facial paralysis caused by damage to the facial nerve. Doctors hypothesized that it was the result of ear infections or inflammation, but the exact cause is not known. At 50, Vern developed type 2 diabetes, and for the last decade of his life, his health was very poor. The writer suffered from high blood pressure, chronic dizziness, tinnitus and other ailments, and at the end of his life he was partially blind.

Jules Verne Funeral Procession, 1905

Jules Verne died in Amiens on March 24, 1905, at the age of 77, from diabetes. Despite the fact that in the last few years of his life the writer saw almost nothing due to progressive blindness, he continued to create until the end of his days, dictating the texts of future books to his assistants.

Jules Verne in steampunk looks something like this -

Jules Verne's influence goes far beyond even today's real-world technology, science fiction, steampunk, and the like. The works of the great writer have inspired countless authors of various genres, from poetry to adventure and travelogues (travelogue is a genre of travel based on travel notes). As the famous American writer Ray Bradbury wrote: “We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne.”

Monuments and monuments have been erected in different countries, and not only in honor of the writer, but also in honor of the heroes of his works.

Monument to Jules Verne, Vigo, Spain (near the building of the Nautical Club (Real Club Náutico)), 2005
Monument to Jules Verne in Redondela (Spain)
Monument to Jules Verne in Nizhny Novgorod Monument to Jules Verne in Nantes (France)

In 1839, an 11-year-old boy in the port of Nantes was hired as a cabin boy on the schooner Corali, bound for India. Actually, he wanted to get into this fabulous country. But he was stopped in time and put ashore. Decades later, he admitted that, apparently, he was born a sailor and still regrets an unfulfilled naval career. The boy's name was Jules Gabriel Verne.

Until now, it is believed that Jules Verne wrote about exciting adventures without leaving his office. This is not true. Of course, he was not destined to go on a flight around the moon, or on a trip to the center of the Earth. But he traveled the world a lot. Including on the three Saint-Michel yachts that belonged to him. He visited the countries of the Mediterranean, Great Britain, the USA. I really wanted to visit Russia too - but in 1881 a strong storm forced the captain of the yacht to abandon the course to St. Petersburg.

But wherever his heroes traveled! The whole planet (and not only) was at their service. Jules Verne's characters have always been special. Read his novels, short stories, stories, plays. In almost all of them there are courageous noble heroes, beautiful courageous women, inquisitive brave teenagers - and pretty eccentric scientists.

For a writer, Jules Verne had an incredible capacity for work. He could sit down at his desk at five o'clock in the morning and leave it at eight in the evening. During this time, one and a half printed sheets of a new novel came out from under his pen, which the publishers were looking forward to - after all, the name "Jules Verne" meant wild popularity and fabulous profits.

Many of Jules Verne's works are a combination of thrilling adventures with daring attempts to look beyond the horizon of the 19th century. The brilliant Frenchman predicted flights into space and the patency of the Northern Sea Route during one navigation, the appearance of an airplane and a helicopter. The legendary submarine "Nautilus" of Captain Nemo stands apart. Yes, by the time Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, submarines had already been invented. But even in the second decade of the 21st century, not a single submarine has the characteristics of the Nautilus!

The novels Flying to the Moon and Around the Moon prompt readers to ask, “How did he know?!” Judge for yourself. Aluminum was widely used in the construction of Columbiad and Apollo. The main block of Apollo 11 had its own name "Columbia". The crews included three astronauts. (Estimate the consonance of surnames: Barbicane-Nicole-Ardant on the Columbiad and Borman-Lovell-Anders on the Apollo 8!) The launch site is the Florida peninsula. The landing site is the Pacific Ocean.

Another firework of predictions is connected with the family myth. They say that in 1863 Jules Verne wrote the novel "Paris in the 20th century", took it to the publisher, and after a while he returned discouraged: the publisher, having read the manuscript, rejected it because of excessive fantasticness, and called the writer an idiot. And suddenly - a sensation: in 1989, the great-grandson of Jules Verne discovered a manuscript forgotten by everyone in some kind of safe. The list of inventions predicted by the writer is amazing: a car, a bullet train, a skyscraper, a computer, a fax machine - and even an electric chair!

But Jules Verne also had gloomy forecasts. The novel "Five Hundred Million Begums" features a German professor, Schulze, who dreams of nationalist ideas and world domination. To do this, he creates a giant weapon that shoots projectiles with poisonous gas. The novel was finished in 1878. Before the first use of chemical warfare agents, 37 years remained ...

The later writings of Jules Verne are imbued with a fear of the use of science for criminal purposes. They were not successful with readers. But at the same time, in the small Russian town of Kaluga, the modest teacher of the diocesan women's gymnasium, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, carefully rereads From the Earth to the Moon, making notes and calculations. And then, rejecting the idea of ​​a manned cannon projectile, he writes: "The skyship should be like a rocket." For nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.

As many designers of rockets and spaceships, as well as the first cosmonauts and astronauts, later admitted, Jules Verne's books were on their desks. For the brilliant talent of a writer and popularizer of scientific achievements, grateful humanity immortalized Jules Verne, naming a large crater in the Sea of ​​Dreams on the far side of the Moon after him. And when the European Space Agency decided to make the ATV cargo ships sent to the International Space Station "named", the very first one was named Jules Verne. He flew in 2008.

In 1839, an 11-year-old boy in the port of Nantes was hired as a cabin boy on the schooner Corali, bound for India. Actually, he wanted to get into this fabulous country. But he was stopped in time and put ashore. Decades later, he admitted that, apparently, he was born a sailor and still regrets an unfulfilled naval career. The boy's name was Jules Gabriel Verne.

Until now, it is believed that Jules Verne wrote about exciting adventures without leaving his office. This is not true. Of course, he was not destined to go on a flight around the moon, or on a trip to the center of the Earth. But he traveled the world a lot. Including on the three Saint-Michel yachts that belonged to him. He visited the countries of the Mediterranean, Great Britain, the USA. I really wanted to visit Russia too - but in 1881 a strong storm forced the captain of the yacht to abandon the course to St. Petersburg.

But wherever his heroes traveled! The whole planet (and not only) was at their service. Jules Verne's characters have always been special. Read his novels, short stories, stories, plays. In almost all of them there are courageous noble heroes, beautiful courageous women, inquisitive brave teenagers - and pretty eccentric scientists.

For a writer, Jules Verne had an incredible capacity for work. He could sit down at his desk at five o'clock in the morning and leave it at eight in the evening. During this time, one and a half printed sheets of a new novel came out from under his pen, which the publishers were looking forward to - after all, the name "Jules Verne" meant wild popularity and fabulous profits.

Many of Jules Verne's works are a combination of thrilling adventures with daring attempts to look beyond the horizon of the 19th century. The brilliant Frenchman predicted flights into space and the patency of the Northern Sea Route during one navigation, the appearance of an airplane and a helicopter. The legendary submarine "Nautilus" of Captain Nemo stands apart. Yes, by the time Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, submarines had already been invented. But even in the second decade of the 21st century, not a single submarine has the characteristics of the Nautilus!

The novels Flying to the Moon and Around the Moon prompt readers to ask, “How did he know?!” Judge for yourself. Aluminum was widely used in the construction of Columbiad and Apollo. The main block of Apollo 11 had its own name "Columbia". The crews included three astronauts. (Estimate the consonance of surnames: Barbicane-Nicole-Ardant on the Columbiad and Borman-Lovell-Anders on the Apollo 8!) The launch site is the Florida peninsula. The landing site is the Pacific Ocean.

Another firework of predictions is connected with the family myth. They say that in 1863 Jules Verne wrote the novel "Paris in the 20th century", took it to the publisher, and after a while he returned discouraged: the publisher, having read the manuscript, rejected it because of excessive fantasticness, and called the writer an idiot. And suddenly - a sensation: in 1989, the great-grandson of Jules Verne discovered a manuscript forgotten by everyone in some kind of safe. The list of inventions predicted by the writer is amazing: a car, a bullet train, a skyscraper, a computer, a fax machine - and even an electric chair!

But Jules Verne also had gloomy forecasts. The novel "Five Hundred Million Begums" features a German professor, Schulze, who dreams of nationalist ideas and world domination. To do this, he creates a giant weapon that shoots projectiles with poisonous gas. The novel was finished in 1878. Before the first use of chemical warfare agents, 37 years remained ...

The later writings of Jules Verne are imbued with a fear of the use of science for criminal purposes. They were not successful with readers. But at the same time, in the small Russian town of Kaluga, the modest teacher of the diocesan women's gymnasium, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, carefully rereads From the Earth to the Moon, making notes and calculations. And then, rejecting the idea of ​​a manned cannon projectile, he writes: "The skyship should be like a rocket." For nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.

As many designers of rockets and spaceships, as well as the first cosmonauts and astronauts, later admitted, Jules Verne's books were on their desks. For the brilliant talent of a writer and popularizer of scientific achievements, grateful humanity immortalized Jules Verne, naming a large crater in the Sea of ​​Dreams on the far side of the Moon after him. And when the European Space Agency decided to make the ATV cargo ships sent to the International Space Station "named", the very first one was named Jules Verne. He flew in 2008.