Verne

vern, Jules (1828-1905), a French novelist. He was born at Nantes, February 8, 1828. He died at Amiens, March 24, 1905. He was educated for the law, but turned his attention to writing. He originated a new style of novel. Each story deals with a scientific invention which he surrounds with a wealth of imagination and adventure. His first story of this sort, Five Weeks in a Balloon, appeared in 1863. Others are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days, The Mysterious Island, A Trip to the Moon, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Purchase of the North Pole, etc. They have been translated widely into nearly all modern languages. Boys delight in Verne's stories. Learned men have found fault because they do not deal with scientific facts. Several of the creations of his imagination, however, as the submarine boat, the automobile, and the dirigible balloon, have been realized. Publishers usually compensate authors by paying what is known as a royalty, a percentage or share of the receipts arising from the sale of the books. Verne, however, wrote for forty years on a salary of 20,000 francs, about $4,000 a year. By the terms of his contract, he wrote a story each six months. He was so modest that his immediate neighbors in the town of Amiens did not know that he was a man of world-wide reputation. They, however, made him an alderman of his ward, and regarded him with the kindliest affection.