In high school English, back in 1981, for my first real “term paper” assignment, I chose to research the early history of science fiction.  Of course, being who I am, this meant not only reading about the various authors and reviews of their works, but actually reading many of the works themselves – HG Wells, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Rice Burroughs – I read almost all of their works either during or in the months after finishing this assignment.  (Of course we can debate when science fiction started, and I would now agree that there was a longer history to be dealt with, but that is not the point right now).  But the major author that I discovered during this early period was Jules Verne (1828-1905).  At the local library I found a collection of his complete works (about 100 items) in a multi-volume set.  I consumed a very large percentage of these in short order.  Separately, as I was taking French, I read at least one of the works in his original language.

Recently, I picked up a Kindle version of Verne’s works (not complete, only 45, for $2.99 from Amazon [The Jules Verne Anthology]), and have so far read two of his 54 Voyages Extraordinaires (originally published as serials in magazines over a period of 42 years), but at a much slower pace than back in the 1980s.  Yes, I will end up reading them all… Although when I was 17 my attraction to Verne was simply his ability to foresee technology, my current fascination runs much deeper.

Verne’s works are not primarily science fiction, but rather primarily adventure stories – at least in the Voyages series.  What has struck me repeatedly while reading his work is the vast number of references he makes to the scientific and exploration knowledge of his time.  Many authors copy this approach with detailed discussion of future fictional history, while other adventure authors simply make up a world of characters and geography to use in painting their worlds.  Verne’s world is almost entirely our real world – his descriptions of science, scientists, adventures and adventurers are actually incredibly detailed and accurate histories of the science and explorations of the 19th century.  I started reading Five Weeks in a Balloon (crossing Africa, searching for the source of the Nile, in a hydrogen-filled balloon), and only after many descriptions of geographical locations and biographical sketches did I start fact-checking on the Internet.  To my great pleasure I discovered that he could be trusted to be providing a history of African exploration, and his work is so much more enjoyable to read than a sterile history book.

What makes Verne invaluable is that you will be hard pressed to find as comprehensive a history of the state of 19th century scientific and geographical knowledge anywhere else.  He is living in the time period, and giving us a first person account of the knowledge of the time.  Having also read through an embarrassingly large number of scientific texts (mostly astronomy) from the mid to late 19th century, I recognize this period as one of the most exciting – though still confused – epochs in scientific history.

Newtonian physics has expanded dramatically from simple mechanics to increasingly sophisticated models of systems of mechanical bodies.  Chemistry is discovering the atomic nature of matter, and is getting its first clues as to the internal structure of the atom, and that the indivisible atom may not be so indivisible. Optics and chemistry have found common cause in spectroscopic analysis of gases, discovering the absorption lines that are unique to each chemical element.  Astronomers have discovered all of the planets, have finally determined what comets are, and are using spectroscopy to learn what materials are in the Sun and stars, yet they still believe the Universe is limited to the Milky Way, and that the fuzzy nebulae that today we know as distant galaxies, are evidence for the nebular theory for the formation of the solar system.  Thermodynamics is a new field of physics, and the very first indications that there is something wrong with extending Newtonian physics to things that are very small or that move very fast are being found, which will lead to the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Verne never apologizes for technology, and his apparent “mad/evil scientists” (such as Captain Nemo) never turn out to be mad nor evil.  I can’t say I agree with all of his themes and morals, but it is extremely refreshing to not need to filter out worries over the negative effects of technology, or some ill-considered desire to return to a “natural” state.  In his adventure stories, he is not hesitant to call primitive people uncivilized, yet at the same time he never falls into the trap of calling them animals or treating them as less than human.