2014 A to Z Challenge: V

Jules Verne

Wikipedia says,

Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction.

Born to bourgeois parents in the seaport of Nantes, Verne was trained to follow in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer, but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages Extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days.

Verne is generally considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation is markedly different in Anglophone regions, where he has often been labeled a writer of genre fiction or children’s books, not least because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels are often reprinted.

Verne is the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, between the English-language writers Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare, and probably was the most-translated during the 1960s and 1970s. He is one of the authors sometimes called “The Father of Science Fiction”, as are H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback.

AnneVeron

AnneVeron is the penname of Anne Veronica Steward.

Anne says,

I have always had a need to read that has morphed into a need to write. Still avidly reading though. One life is never enough … time rattles on too fast but books let me live vicariously other people’s lives, real and imaginary. Since I retired from teaching: age ranges from 5 to 45, in Infant, Junior and High School with a generous dash of Special Education, I have worked for NCH as a Family Group Co-ordinator, in a gorgeous local bookshop and at the University as a Study Mentor for students. I also had a wonderful experience working in Cambodia with VSO for a year. My journal should be out on Kindle shortly. Holmfirth Writers’ Group and the National Association of Writers’ Groups make me part of a vibrant network of writers. I am a very proud mum and grandma with family in England, Wales, Canada and Australia.

The Link

Anne writes about Jules Verne: “He wrote so well about what might happen and what could happen. My novel, not yet published, is called ‘Powerless’ and reflects my feeling that we are so dependent on electrical technology that we have a disaster in waiting. My story is about human resilience where we would find ways forward by dipping into our past. Verne was also poet and a playwright. I have written scripts and find poetry an essential part of my creative work.”