Reading Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires

This is not new material, since I posted these reviews elsewhere, but since this is a forum devoted to Verne, and by nature more easy to navigate than the reddit sub, I thought it might be appropriate to repost these here, which I will do gradually.

About three years ago, I embarked on the long-term project of reading all of Jules Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires, using the 100-volume edition in Spanish that I have. Some of them I had read as a kid, and I was a fan. As I read the books, I wrote short reviews detailing my impressions, as a way for me to keep track and in the hope they might be of interest to someone else with an interest in this author. 

The word count is approximate, based on the Spanish unabridged translations I have. The number of volumes refers to the original publication; it's normal for a novel originally published in several volumes to be published in just one volume afterwards:

(1) Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon, 1863) (1 volume) (link) 81K words

(2) Voyage au centre de la Terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864) (1 volume) 68K words

(3) Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras (The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, 1864-66) (2 volumes) 139K words

(4) De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865) (1 volume) 55K words

(5) Les Enfants du capitaine Grant (In Search of the Castaways, aka Captain Grant's Children, 1867-68) (3 volumes) 201K words

(6) Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, 1869-70) (2 volumes) 142K words

(7) Autour de la lune (Around The Moon, 1870) (1 volume) 57K words

(8) Une ville flottante (A Floating City, 1871) (1 volume) 37K words

(9) Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais (The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa, aka Measuring a Meridian, 1872) (1 volume) 69K words

(10) Le Pays des fourrures (The Fur Country, aka Seventy Degrees North Latitude, 1873) (2 volumes) 139K words

(11) Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days, 1873) (1 volume) 67K words

(12) L'Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island, 1874-75) (3 volumes) 206K words

(13) Le Chancellor (The Survivors of the Chancellor, 1875) (1 volume) 53K words

(14) Michel Strogoff (Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar, 1876) (2 volumes) 111K words

(15) Hector Servadac (Off on a Comet, 1877) (2 volumes) 120K words

(16) Les Indes noires (The Child of the Cavern, aka The Underground City, 1877) (1 volume) 56K words

(17) Un capitaine de quinze ans (Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen, 1878) (2 volumes) 121K words

(18) Les Cinq Cents Millions de la Bégum (The Begum's Millions, 1879) (1 volume) 54K words

(19) Les Tribulations d'un chinois en Chine (Tribulations of a Chinaman in China, 1879) (1 volume) 66K words

(20) La Maison à vapeur (The Steam House, 1880) (2 volumes) 116K words

(21) La Jangada (Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon, 1881) (2 volumes) 93K words

(22) L'École des Robinsons (Godfrey Morgan, aka School for Crusoes, 1882) (1 volume) 62K words

(23) Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray, 1882) (1 volume) 46K words

(24) Kéraban-le-têtu (Kéraban the Inflexible, 1883) (2 volumes) 100K words

(25) L'Étoile du sud (The Vanished Diamond, aka The Southern Star, 1884) (1 volume) 71K words

(26) L'Archipel en feu (The Archipelago on Fire, aka Islands on Fire, 1884) (1 volume) 62K words

(27) Mathias Sandorf (Mathias Sandorf, 1885) (3 volumes) 154K words

(28) Un billet de loterie (The Lottery Ticket, aka Ticket No. 9672, 1886) (1 volume) 48K words

(29) Robur-le-Conquérant (Robur the Conqueror, aka The Clipper of the Clouds, 1886) (1 volume) 59K words

(30) Nord contre Sud (North Against South, aka Texar's Revenge, 1887) (2 volumes) 115K words

(31) Le Chemin de France (The Flight to France, 1887) (1 volume) 57K words

(32) Deux Ans de vacances (Two Years' Vacation, aka Adrift in the Pacific 1888) (2 volumes) 105K words

(33) Famille-sans-nom (Family Without a Name, 1889) (2 volumes) 107K words

(34) Sans dessus dessous (The Purchase of the North Pole, aka Topsy-Turvy, 1889) (1 volume) 48K words

(35) César Cascabel (César Cascabel, 1890) (2 volumes) 107K words

(36) Mistress Branican (Mistress Branican, 1891) (2 volumes) 114K words

(37) Le Château des Carpathes (The Carpathian Castle, aka The Castle in Transylvania, 1892) (1 volume) 52K words

(38) Claudius Bombarnac (Claudius Bombarnac, aka The Adventures of a Special Correspondent, 1892) (1 volume) 70K words

(39) P’tit-Bonhomme (Foundling Mick, 1893) (2 volumes) 110K words

(40) Mirifiques Aventures de Maître Antifer (Captain Antifer, 1894) (2 volumes) 99K words

(41) L'Île à hélice (Propeller Island, aka The Floating Island, 1895) (2 volumes) 109K words

(42) Face au drapeau (Facing the Flag, 1896) (1 volume) 55K words

(43) Clovis Dardentor (Clovis Dardentor, 1896) (1 volume) 58K words

(44) Le Sphinx des glaces (An Antarctic Mystery, aka The Sphinx of the Ice Realm, 1897) (2 volumes) 114K words

(45) Le Superbe Orénoque (The Mighty Orinoco, 1898) (2 volumes) 102K words

(46) Le Testament d'un excentrique (The Will of an Eccentric, 1899) (2 volumes) 119K words

(47) Seconde Patrie (The Castaways of the Flag, aka Second Fatherland, 1900) (2 volumes) 118K words

(48) Le Village aérien (The Village in the Treetops, 1901) (1 volume) 53K words

(49) Les Histoires de Jean-Marie Cabidoulin (The Sea Serpent, aka The Yarns of Jean Marie Cabidoulin, 1901) (1 volume) 51K words

(50) Les Frères Kip (The Kip Brothers, 1902) (2 volumes) 102K words

(51) Bourses de voyage (Travel Scholarships, 1903) (2 volumes) 90K words

(52) Un drame en Livonie (A Drama in Livonia, 1904) (1 volume) 54K words

(53) Maître du monde (Master of the World, 1904) (1 volume) 41K words

(54) L'Invasion de la mer (Invasion of the Sea, 1905) (1 volume) 53K words



Posthumous novels (but officially part of the Voyages Extraordinaires). These novels were originally written by Jules Verne but, after his death, were revised and expanded by his son, Michel Verne, and published as part of the Voyages Extraordinaires, with Jules Verne credited as the only author. The original manuscripts by Jules Verne of these posthumous novels were found near the end of the 20th century, and it was then that Michel's contributions were discovered. The exception was The Thompson Travel Agency, for which no original Jules Verne manuscript was found, leading some investigators to believe that this novel might be exclusively Michel's work:

(55) Le Phare du bout du monde (The Lighthouse at the End of the World, 1905) (1 volume) 41K words

(56) Le Volcan d’or (The Golden Volcano, 1906) (2 volumes) 115K words

(57) L’Agence Thompson and Co (The Thompson Travel Agency, 1907) (2 volumes) 126K words

(58) La Chasse au météore (The Chase of the Golden Meteor, 1908) (1 volume) 59K words

(59) Le Pilote du Danube (The Danube Pilot, 1908) (1 volume) 60K words

(60) Les Naufragés du "Jonathan" (The Survivors of the "Jonathan", 1909) (2 volumes) 142K words

(61) Le Secret de Wilhelm Storitz (The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz, 1910) (1 volume) 54K words

(62) L’Étonnante Aventure de la mission Barsac (The Barsac Mission, 1919) (2 volumes) 122K words



These are the 62 novels published as part of the Voyages Extraordinaires. Since 27 of them are double volumes and 3 are triple volumes, they take 95 volumes. After these, my 100-volume collection is completed with a related novel (The Waif of the Cynthia) and several volumes of Verne's shorter works. Many of those shorter works are also officially part of the Voyages Extraordinaires, having been published as extras in the same volume as one of the novels in the series or in one of the two short story collections.


Shorter works officially part of the Voyages Extraordinaires, as they were published accompanying one of the novels in the series: 

(1) Les Forceurs de blocus (The Blockade Runners, published with A Floating City, 1871) 17K words

(2) Martin Paz (Martin Paz, published with The Survivors of the Chancellor, 1875) 17K words

(3) Un drame au Mexique (A Drama in Mexico, published with Michael Strogoff, 1876) 8K words

(4) Les révoltés de la Bounty (The Mutineers of the Bounty, published with The Begum's Millions, 1879) 7K words

(5) Dix heures en chasse (Ten Hours Hunting , published with The Green Ray, 1882) 5K words

(6) Frritt-Flacc (Frritt-Flacc, published with The Lottery Ticket, 1886) 3K words

(7) Gil Braltar (Gil Braltar, published with The Flight to France, 1887) 2K words


Short story collections, also considered part of the Voyages Extraordinaires:

(1) Le Docteur Ox (Doctor Ox, 1874) (1 volume) 70K words

(2) Hier et Demain (Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1910) (1 volume) (posthumous, with stories completed or modified by Michel Verne) 63K words


Related novel (not officially part of the Voyages Extraordinaires but published in a similar edition):

(1) L'Epave du Cynthia (The Waif of the Cynthia, 1885) (1 volume) 71K words (published as cowritten by Verne and Andre Laurie, but it was later discovered that most of the actual writing was done by Laurie and Verne's role was mainly that of supervisor and corrector. It is not officially part of the Voyages Extraordinaires, although the edition and the type of story were similar)


Other posthumous novels (not part of the Voyages Extraordinaires). These were not published during Michel Verne's lifetime, but were discovered near the end of the 20th century and published then:

(1) Voyage à reculons en Angleterre et en Ecosse (Backwards to Britain, written 1859, first published 1989) 57K words

(2) Paris au XXe siècle (Paris in the Twentieth Century, written around 1860, first published 1994) 38K words


A couple of unfinished novels were also discovered and published near the end of the 20th century: Un prêtre en 1839 (written around 1846, an unfinished mystery story influenced by Gothic fiction), and L'Oncle Robinson (written around 1870, an unfinished adventure story whose ideas Verne later used for The Mysterious Island, although the characters were different).



Regarding the reading order, most of Verne's works are standalones, with the following exceptions:

* Around The Moon (1870) continues the story told in From the Earth to the Moon (1865). It's a direct sequel, starting exactly where the first novel finishes. In fact, we only consider them as two different novels because they were originally published that way, but it would make sense to think of them as a single novel in two volumes. There is a third novel, The Purchase of the North Pole, aka Topsy-Turvy (1889), with most of the same characters, although it's a separate, standalone story.

* The Mysterious Island (1875) is a standalone sequel to In Search of the Castaways (1868) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870). It's a sequel only in a very loose way. A couple of characters from those previous novels make appearances in The Mysterious Island. Each of the three novels is a different story and can be read independently, but The Mysterious Island serves to close these character's arcs. Therefore, if you are going to read all of them, it makes sense to read The Mysterious Island after the others. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and In Search of the Castaways are fully independent from each other, so it does not make much difference which you read first. Taken together, these three novels offer one of the greatest experiences that classic adventure fiction can offer.

* Master of the World (1904) is a sequel to Robur the Conqueror (1886). Although Master of the World is a different story, if you are going to read both it would make sense to read them in chronological order, to see the evolution of the character. In any case, in Master of the World, Verne gives a summary of the previous story for background information, when it becomes relevant.

* An Antarctic Mystery, aka The Sphinx of the Ice Realm (1897) is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) (link). You do not need to read Poe's novel to understand this one, since Verne gives you all the information you need, including a detailed summary when it becomes relevant. However, Poe's novel is worth reading anyway.

* The Castaways of the Flag, aka Second Fatherland (1900) is a sequel to Johann Wyss' novel The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) (link). Again, you do not need to read Wyss' novel to understand this one, since Verne gives you all the information you need, including a detailed summary when it becomes relevant.



In many of the novels, you can follow the adventures on a map. If your edition doesn't include them, here are the originals: verne.garmtdevries.nl/en/maps/originals.html




I'm reading these works in Spanish, but since I'm writing the reviews in English I should mention that the quality of contemporary English translations of Verne's work has often not been satisfactory. It's often worth it looking for modern translations when available, even if they are more expensive, not being out of copyright. To choose a good English translation, I suggest checking these links:

* This is an article by Arthur B. Evans detailing a bibliography of Verne translations (it's from 2005, so more modern ones are not included), with some indication of the best ones and the ones to avoid. It tells you how each translation begins, so they are easy to identify:

www.julesverne.ca/jv.gilead.org.il/evans/VerneTrans(biblio).html

* This is a more recent 2022 article recommending the best translation for each book. It draws on the Arthur B. Evans article, but when available recommends a more modern translation:

file770.com/a-bibliography-of-jules-verne-translations/

* And finally, the SFF Encyclopedia is a also a good resource to check whether there are recent translations, although some of the most recent ones are missing (remember that these modern translations will usually be better than the contemporary ones):

sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/verne_jules

* Finally, this page contains free ebook versions of modern, unabridged English translations of 20.000 Leagues Under the Seas, The Children of Captain Grant (In Search of the Castaways) and The Mysterious Island: thecatacombs.ca/JulesVerne/




Note: I have taken some of the novel synopses, modifying them as I saw fit, from several sources, like wikipedia or www.julesverne.ca