Jules Verne: The Definitive Biography

by William Butcher, Arthur C. Clarke (Introduction)

From the established expert on the subject comes this new biography of one of the world's most successful writers. Breath-taking in scope, and full of the kind of revelations sure to cause press and controversy, Butcher combines existing and new research on Verne’s life with the evidence from Verne's works to explore what sort of man Jules Verne was, how he achieved what he did, what went on inside his head, what really made him tick.

Butcher examines the forgotten nitty-gritty of Verne’s his appearance, his schoolmates, the size of his bedroom, who he talked to and slept with, who he fell out with and was sued by, the fibs he told, how he got to work, how much he made, what he did on his days off, where he went, what he studied, what he read, whether he was a good husband and father — in sum, all the behavior that points to personality, as only a family member can know it.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published May 14, 2006

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

*yawn* This book took me months to read. It was not the most interesting biography, even though it attempted to be very informative. Butcher did not always seem fair to me in his portrayal of Verne. He would make allowances for his contradictory statements and then assume later that such statements had to be taken for face value. While I agree that Verne is too complex to categorize and dismiss as only science fiction or only adventure writer, I believe reading him as a member of all these groups is more useful than removing him entirely from fields that have been influenced by his work. He did belong to scientific communities, and his Paris in the Twentieth Century gives some remarkable commentary on the dangers of technological progress. Not a fan of this one, which is rare for me.

[Kevin Orrman-Rossiter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitive maybe, but poorly written. The subject, Jules Verne, is one of great fascination to me, however this biography could have benefited from some precision editing. The author may be a wizard at providing some authoritative translations of Verne classics - but you will need to look elsewhere for an interesting biography.

[Gene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well researched & surprisingly complete, full of information I had no idea about, this biography will open your eyes and make you rethink Verne. It would have been better if the author had not used so many untranslated French terms, but still, a real in depth life.

[Rafael Ontivero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esto es lo que yo llamo una biografía sin pelos en la lengua, que presenta al Verne que realmente debió ser, y no el que nos presentan los biógrafos más políticamente correctos.

Tiene toda la pinta de que Verne, en su juventud, fue bastante tarambana y vivales, despilfarrando el dinero como buen hijo de burgués sin mucha preocupación sobre su futuro. Habitual de burdeles, habitual de fiestas y saraos varios, lo que habitualmente se ha entendido como una pensión que apenas le daba para vivir, enviada por su padre, más bien consistía en sus buenos dineros capaces de mantener a otro menos derrochador.

Hipocondríaco, de esquiva sexualidad a lo largo de toda su vida (lo que no es ningún problema ni ninguna pega, por supuesto), aunque el atentado de su sobrino algo tendría que ver, pues apuntaba a los "bajos" de Verne...

Parece ser que tampoco fue el padre de familia más o menos ejemplar que se nos ha mostrado, sino más bien todo lo contrario. Putero, completamente desprendido de su mujer y de sus hijas, atento a la dote y a los réditos del dinero de su mujer, que posiblemente abortara dos veces poniendo en serio peligro su vida (y dos veces fue desahuciada por los médicos, salvándose de milagro -la explicación más probable de los dos derrames uterinos de Honorine).

También comenta algunas cosas sobre las primeras novelas de Verne, cómo Hetzel las cambió, aunque eso está mucho mejor documentado en "Los manuscritos descifrados" del mismo autor, publicado solo de momento en francés.

De todos modos, otro punto negativo de la biografía es que acelera, y no poco, más o menos a partir de 1870 para finalizar de dos plumazos.

¿Por qué cuatro y no cinco estrellas? Porque el autor es un poco pedante de más.

[Mark Stattelman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the Audible version. I do have a copy of the book, so I might go back and read parts of it. And there are photos in the physical book. It was OK. A little dry. I feel as though there are a lot of facts dispensed, but I've still not gotten a good handle on the man as an author. This might just be the case with Verne. This is the second biography of Verne that I've "read." The first one was more of an exploratory analysis of his works with a few biographical facts thrown in.
It is astounding and somewhat depressing to me that Verne's Editor/Publisher would change whole sections of Verne's works to suit his own agenda, rewriting large portions himself . . . Depending on which edition you read, you might be reading a version that is different in many ways from what Verne wrote and even different from other published editions. Which is the original or correct edition sanctioned by Verne of, say, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? For that matter, which is the edition I read as an eleven year old that I loved so much? One never knows.

[Miriam Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thankfully, narrator and Golden Voice Simon Vance brings this lengthy biblio-biography, scholarly biography of the life, times, and work of Jules Verne. Most definitely, a scholarly study of Verne along with discussion of his writing style, unusual habits, and discoveries in manuscripts and letters.

You'll learn about Verne's prodigious writings, his writing style and the many series and adventure stories. Verne is most definitely a writer of the nineteenth century, those who grind out numerous works, much like his contemporaries, French Dumas, Zola, and Balzac, British Dickens and the slightly older Sir Walter Scott, American James Fenimore Cooper, and even younger Kipling.

Throughout the audio performance, I wanted to grab books on French history both literary and cultural, lists of nineteenth century books, and even a timeline of Verne's life & output.

For a review of the audio performance, see AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com

[Sean O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jules Verne as an author is an enigma. Dumas has an outsized personality, Hugo and Sand and Balzac and Zola are all respected and well known. But Verne was the best selling French author of that century. And he had the least scholarly reputation because even at the time his books were considered adventure stories that were at least partly marketed to children.


English speakers have a double handicap: most of the translations are butchered and because they’re in the public domain, they’re still popular. Go and check your copy of “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, if the narrator is called Hans instead of Axel, the crime is still being perpetrated.

The problem is Verne isn’t really studied in French either. Many of his stories were watered down and rewritten by his publisher and there are no critical editions of the original manuscripts.

The author highlights Verne’s private and work life in a way that I wish were available to most of my favorite authors.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to a digital audio book edition of Jules Verne. Before listening to the book I knew one or two titles of Jules Verne's book but, knew nothing about the author himself.

One thing that surprised me was learning that the translations of some of his works were not good translations.

I thought Jules verne: The biography was Ok. I can't think of anything I parasitically liked or disliked about it. And I don't know what to say about it. I do want to learn more about Jules Verne though.

[Gazmend Ceno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this book. I had previously read more then once Leonid Borisov version in my native language, Albanian. Very different books, of course... Why I gave 5 starts to this version? Simply because I needed as much information about the author as I could get. However, if you are looking for a flawless, breathtaking novel, I would suggest reading Jules Verne books, not this biography, which is, technically speaking, important only to those who love his works in the first place.

[Timothy Juhl · Rating 2 out of 5]

AUDIOBOOK

An exhausting biography that seemed (and it was forewarned in the first chapter) to wish to cover the very minutia of Verne's life. His school grades, his pursuits, his religion, his travels, his loves and friendships, his misogyny.

The narrator did little to make this hefty book any more enjoyable; he sounded too often like a questioning professor giving a lecture.

I was hoping I would be more moved to read some of Verne's work, and I admit that he is on my radar now if I ever see a good vintage edition of his novels, but I'm not going out of my way to find it.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's much to like about this biography -- which certainly has piqued my interest in Verne -- but it's marred by a few things:

1) The author's insistence on insulting other biographers every chance he gets
2) The author's assumption that readers are well-informed about 19th Century French history
3) Odd stylistic choices such as frequently elliptical writing and odd jumping about in time

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really interesting. The big takeaways were his odd scatological humor and that his publisher/editor (and translators) cheated him financially and distorted the works with large, clumsy revisions.

[Jim Armor · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Audible] A engaging and detailed biography of Jules Verne, William Butcher clearly has a passion for his subject, and uncovers fascinating new details, letters and manuscripts from Verne’s life. He does a wonderful job of describing Vernes’ family and work life in virtual first person at various stages of his life. Butcher also has a deeply and probably well-founded contempt for Verne’s lifelong editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, who systematically compromised Verne’s text and blatantly ripped off Verne’s earnings and royalties. (He estimates 7 of every 8 francs went to Hetzel!) He does admit that Verne deserves much blame for not taking control of his own accounting and his own text. In one example, Butcher describes Vernes 100,000-word manuscript was edited down to 80,000 words, 20,000 of which Hetzel wrote and inserted himself; and the whole thing was reduced to 20,000 words when translated to English. Butcher decried the final product as a travesty that contained nothing of Verne’s original language, themes or intent. This interplay between writer and editor undoubtedly sounds familiar to many; Butcher concludes that this was an historic worst-case scenario. The upshot, Butcher asserts, is that the world now views Verne as a science fiction writer of adventure stories for young boys, when he is clearly and profoundly not. The biography ends with a plea for Verne’s “true” manuscripts to be published, or at least become publicly available (many aren’t and are held privately or are difficult to get access to because they are fragile) so that the real literary mastery of Verne can become known.
The narrator, Simon Vance, was superb and added to the listening enjoyment. However, I regret not having a hardcopy of the book because it was difficult to recall while listening the hundreds of novels, stories, plays, poems and their various versions as the reading progressed; also, the occasional use of French and following of geographical references required stopping to look up.