The translation is partly to blame a closer translation would be Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the 'Seas', which is sometimes used in more modern translations. 20,000 leagues vertically would be impossible, being 80,000 kilometers, note Verne used the metric league, which is 4 km or twice the circumference of the Earth. The novel has a sequel, The Mysterious Island, which tells Nemo's Back Story.įun fact that people sometimes forget: the title refers to the distance the Nautilus travels horizontally over the course of the book, not the depth it dives to. Aronnax finds himself torn between his passionate interest in marine biology and his desire for freedom-should he try to escape with his comrades or stay and find out why Nemo sails around the world? While refusing to put our heroes ashore, he lets them live, and takes them on a fantastic journey under the seas of the world, showing them the many wonders of the world beneath the waves. The mysterious narwhal is in fact not a whale, but a high-tech electric submarine known as the Nautilus, owned and designed by the mysterious and eccentric Captain Nemo. They clamber onto the only dry spot in the sea, namely the narwhal's back, expecting to drown as soon as it dives.

Once they find the narwhal, it attacks, causing Aronnax, his trusty manservant Conseil and Ned Land, the ship's Canadian harpoonist, to fall overboard (well, Conseil jumped, to rescue the Professor). It has a strong focus on technology, existentialism, and marine biology.ĭuring a visit to America, Professor Aronnax, a famous French marine biologist, is invited to join a US Navy expedition in the hunt for a mysterious sea monster (believed to be a giant narwhal) that has attacked and damaged two ships. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a 1869 French adventure novel by Jules Verne.

Thousand leagues under the sea