Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Jules Verne1870Verne took readers deep under the ocean and gave them Captain Nemo, the original tech genius who turned against the world.
Read this if you…
- are a scifi nerd who wants an undersea adventure
- want the best Jules Verne novel
Skip this if you…
- aren't a nerd
- want something serious and thought provoking
Why It Matters
Verne took readers deep under the ocean and gave them Captain Nemo, the original tech genius who turned against the world. The book basically invented the science fiction submarine story, and it predicted real submarine technology decades before anyone built one. This is Verne imagining a future that actually showed up.
The 
Take
Fun to see Vernes passion for science bleed through. Does a great job thinking up a lot of great stuff that can happen under the sea. Good read
Where to go next
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea built on it. - Captain Nemo is Edmond Dantès moved underwater — Verne built his brooding, vengeful, self-exiled commander on Dumas's Count - Read *Monte Cristo* first and Nemo's mystery reads as a sequel of temperament: the wronged man with a secret fortune, withdrawn from a world he means to punish - The friendship was real — Verne knew Dumas — and the lineage so plain his editor quietly trimmed the acknowledgment from the manuscript
Depicted in Art
Side-view portrait of the Nautilus cutting through the waves, conning tower rising above the spindle hull.
Alphonse de Neuville, 1870
The Nautilus's grand salon: organ, paintings, display cases of marine specimens, and the great viewing-port onto the deep.
Édouard Riou, 1870
Crew on the open deck of the Nautilus fighting a giant squid with axes and harpoons as its tentacles whip across the planking.
Alphonse de Neuville, 1870
A giant spider-crab specimen drawn from the Nautilus's natural-history collection.
Alphonse de Neuville, 1870
Nemo stands on the upper platform of the surfaced Nautilus taking a sextant reading, his crew at attention behind him.
Alphonse de Neuville, 1870
Nemo and Aronnax watch through the Nautilus's viewing port as a pearl-diver works in the water just outside.
Alphonse de Neuville, 1870
Recommended Editions
William Butcher
Oxford University Press · 2009
The 1873 Mercier Lewis version cut 23% of the text and butchered the science. Butcher's Oxford is the corrective. The real Verne is a sharper, funnier, more scientifically literate writer than the English reputation.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.”
“Mobilis in mobili”
More by Jules Verne
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
1864 · Science Fiction
- Around the World in Eighty Days
1872 · Adventure