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Jules Verne: Master of Science Fiction
1956
Sidgwick and Jackson
London
with Dustjacket and 1 photo (of Verne opposite the title page)
236 pages
Jules Verne: Master of Science Fiction
nd
Rinehart & Company, Inc
New York
with Dustjacket and 1 photo (of Verne opposite the title page)
I.O.Evans dedicates the book: To the Memory of Jules Verne
The book contains an Acknowledgement, Preface and 26 page introduction by I. O. Evans, followed by excerpts from Jules Vernes works. The book ends with a bibliography by Kenneth Allott.
Each excerpt is prefaced and concluded by a note from I. O. Evans.
Excerpts included in the book are from (and in the following order):
- A Journey to the Center of the Earth
- From the Earth to the Moon
- Round the Moon
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
- Dropped from the Clouds
- Secret of the Island
- The Child of the Cavern
- Hector Servadac
- The Begum's Fortune
- The Steam House
- The Clipper of the Clouds
- The Floating Island
- For the Flag
- An Antarctic Mystery
- Five Weeks in a Balloon
Uncredited notes on the dustjacket:
Though Jules Verne is rightly honoured as a pioneer of science fiction, his reputation now rests almost exclusively on a few of his best-known works. While these certainly rank among the classics of the art, they form only a small portion of his tremendous output. Many of his books are noteworthy for their striking and original themes, including intimations of the helicopter, guided missles, and an artifical satellite!
No selection from his work could omit his descriptions of the balloon Victoria and the submarine Nautilus, of the Columbiad space-gun and its projectile, or of the perils awaiting the explorers of the extinct Icelandic volcano. Other lesser-known passages are also included here, notably his helicopter Albatross, his mechanical elephant, his artificial island, his immense cavern immediately below Loch Katrine, and his enigmatic Sphinx-like rock dominating the South Pole.
The compiler, who has long been a voracious reader of science fiction and is a life-long admirer of Verne, summarises the Master's work in his Introduction and discusses it critically.
I.O.E. wrote the Acknowledgements:
My thanks are due to Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd. for permission to quote so freely from their editions of Jules Verne's works, from which the great majority of the extracts are taken. The exceptions are the extracts from Five Weeks in a Balloon, A Journey into the Interior of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, for which I am indebted respectively to Messrs. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., Messrs Ward Lock & Co. Ltd., and Messrs. William Collins, Sons & Co. Ltd.
My thanks are also due for permission to quote shorter passages: from Boys Will be Boys to Mr. E. SA. Turner and Messrs. Michael Joseph Ltd.; from the introduction to his Scientific Romances to the executrix of the late Mr. H. G. Wells; from Miss Clemence Dane's broadcast to Miss Dane herself and to the British Broadcasting Corporation and to Messrs. The Cresset Press for permission to use the exhaustive and definitive bibliography compiled by Mr. Kenneth Allott and published in his book.
I am, moreover, indebted to the librarians and staffs of the Wandsworth, Westminster and Croydon Public Libraries for their co-operation in placing at my disposal the volumes from which I have quoted.
Finally, my thanks are abundantly due to Mr. Allott himself and to Madame Allotte de la Fuye for the two sources of information on Jules Verne's personal life as well as on his work; and to my Wife for invaluable help not only in the detailed work of preparing the manuscript but in selecting passages likely to be of greatest interest........I. O. E.
I.O.E. wrote the Preface:
My introduction to Jules Verne occurred in my childhood, when a Journey to the Centre of the Earth was the only readable story in the highly specialized library of a village Sunday school. later I progressed to Round the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and other Verne masterpieces, as well as to H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe. This juvenile reading had far-reaching effects on my life.
It was through interests that began in my early acquaintance with Verne that I have become a "Science-fiction addict", an amateur speleologist, a student of geology, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His influence, too, has greatly affected my own literary work, for my historical stories for juvenile reading, in which appears a strong science-fictional interest, could, I am informed, be aptly described as "Henty crossed by Jules Verne".
I first learned of the so-called "pulp magazines" of the scientifiction school from my friend Mr. A. C. Garrad; in these I found, along with much "space opera", and abundance of really good work. And here, as in the later developments of science-fiction, so ably summarised by Miss Clemence Dane in her broadcast talk, I have been interested to trace the influence, along with that of Poe and Wells, of its pioneer and master, Jules Verne.
In spite of many recent developments, both in science-fiction and in the science on which it is based, several of Verne's works still live, not merely as classics of the art-form but as being as readable as ever: A Journey into the Interior of the Earth, the moon-voyage stories, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (as well as Round the World in Eighty Days, which is not science-fiction and so is not represented in this collection).
The bulk of his work has, however, largely dropped into oblibion, and this includes much that well repays reading. Not all of it was science-fictional; indeed, its greater part consists of "straight" adventure stories of exploration or travel from which strange inventions and gadgets are completely absent. Nor, indeed, are all his science-fiction stories included here; there are no quotations, for example, from The Purchase of the North Pole, or Master of the World. To my great regret I have been unable to quote from Verne's latest books, for these appear unobtainable, either in translation or in the original, and for this reason I could not, as I hoped, include the very last of his works, The Eternal Adam.
None the less the present selection will, I hope, be enough to show the breadth of his interests, the originality and versatility of his mind, his mastery of an adventurous sweep of narrative, and his powers of description. Except for a few minor alterations, of obvious copying errors or incorrect punctuation, I have adhered to the original translations, for the form in which Verne reached the English speaking world is part of his literary history.
Verne brought me much delight in a childhood that was not over-happy, has given me a wide variety of interests, and has been a source of pleasure time and again. If, by reviving interest in his lesser-known works, I can communicate any of that delight to others I shall be glad indeed........ I. O. E.
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