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Post by farseer on Sept 16, 2024 10:23:36 GMT
I wanted to share an article written by Volker Dehs, a very prominent Verne scholar, listing the books in Verne's personal library. Even though the article is in French, the list of books is interesting, and you can use an automatic translator if you don't understand the titles. www.verniana.org/volumes/03/HTML/Bibliotheque.html |
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Post by phileasfogg on Sept 16, 2024 14:56:25 GMT
Wow, thanks for sharing this! Lots of thoughts. Firstly, that this is a very useful list for understanding Verne's source material and his reading habits. Who knows if he actually read every book here (most likely not) but it tells us about his interests. I'm not surprised to see Victor Hugo often. Every self-respecting French author of the time would have had his books. I do remember reading that Verne was a fan of Dickens somewhere so not surprising either. I am a bit surprised to see H. G. Wells on the list. I would have thought Verne was a bit before his time even if they were contemporaries for a short while. It shows Verne continued to keep up with popular literature (also evidenced by the presence of Arthur Conan Doyle on the list).
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Post by farseer on Sept 16, 2024 15:31:49 GMT
Wow, thanks for sharing this! Lots of thoughts. Firstly, that this is a very useful list for understanding Verne's source material and his reading habits. Who knows if he actually read every book here (most likely not) but it tells us about his interests. I'm not surprised to see Victor Hugo often. Every self-respecting French author of the time would have had his books. I do remember reading that Verne was a fan of Dickens somewhere so not surprising either. I am a bit surprised to see H. G. Wells on the list. I would have thought Verne was a bit before his time even if they were contemporaries for a short while. It shows Verne continued to keep up with popular literature (also evidenced by the presence of Arthur Conan Doyle on the list). Yes, Verne admired Dickens, and of course Dumas, Walter Scott... Don't go just by the number of entries for each writer, though: sometimes, the entry is Complete Works (Œuvres, or Œuvres complètes), so it's a collection of all the authors books, presumably from the same publisher and with a similar binding. In Dickens case, for example, he had a collection of his complete works. Just in the fiction section, he had complete works from Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Balzac, Dickens, Dumas, Victor Hugo, Molière, Tolstoï, several French and classic poets... he also had everything by Poe, another author he admired. He also had books by other adventure writers like Stevenson, Maine Reid, a lot of Fenimore Cooper... Regarding Wells, I'm not surprised. Yes, Verne was 38 when Wells was born, but Wells' most famous novels are his among his first, all published before Verne's death, and I know Verne was often asked about Wells in interviews. There's some Kipling... I'm surprised to see no Mark Twain, though. Just because it's not in the list, it doesn't necessarily mean that he hadn't read it, though. After all, Verne was clearly very familiar with The Swiss Family Robinson (I think it was a childhood favorite of his), since he wrote a sequel to it, but I don't see it in the list (he also wrote a sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, but that one certainly is in the list). |
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Post by phileasfogg on Sept 16, 2024 15:59:44 GMT
Wow, thanks for sharing this! Lots of thoughts. Firstly, that this is a very useful list for understanding Verne's source material and his reading habits. Who knows if he actually read every book here (most likely not) but it tells us about his interests. I'm not surprised to see Victor Hugo often. Every self-respecting French author of the time would have had his books. I do remember reading that Verne was a fan of Dickens somewhere so not surprising either. I am a bit surprised to see H. G. Wells on the list. I would have thought Verne was a bit before his time even if they were contemporaries for a short while. It shows Verne continued to keep up with popular literature (also evidenced by the presence of Arthur Conan Doyle on the list). Yes, Verne admired Dickens, and of course Dumas, Walter Scott... Don't go just by the number of entries for each writer, though: sometimes, the entry is Complete Works (Œuvres, or Œuvres complètes), so it's a collection of all the authors books, presumably from the same publisher and with a similar binding. In Dickens case, for example, he had a collection of his complete works. Just in the fiction section, he had complete works from Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Balzac, Dickens, Dumas, Victor Hugo, Molière, Tolstoï, several French and classic poets... he also had everything by Poe, another author he admired. He also had books by other adventure writers like Stevenson, Maine Reid, a lot of Fenimore Cooper... Regarding Wells, I'm not surprised. Yes, Verne was 38 when Wells was born, but Wells' most famous novels are his among his first, all published before Verne's death, and I know Verne was often asked about Wells in interviews. I'm surprised to see no Mark Twain, though. Just because it's not in the list, it doesn't necessarily mean that he hadn't read it, though. After all, Verne was clearly extremely familiar with The Swiss Family Robinson, since he wrote a sequel to it, but I don't see it in the list (he also wrote a sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, but that one certainly is in the list). Yeah, he may have taken advantage of books in the Paris library as well. I know he referenced doing this when reading scientific research to use in his books. The complete works of Shakespeare is unsurprising. I can't remember where I read this, but I know The Tempest was Verne's favourite play (which makes sense). He has portraits of Dumas and Shakespeare in his study, I believe. I saw an English learning book on the list too. I was under the impression that his English was not so good, so I wonder if he used this more as a reference or if he was genuinely trying to improve. Of course, more Brits would have spoken French back then than today, so he could easily get away with not knowing much English. |
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