Invasion of the Sea

Jules Verne

Mac 2007 · Wesleyan University Press

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First English edition of a classic Verne novel.

Jules Verne, celebrated French author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days, wrote over 60 novels collected in the popular series "Voyages Extraordinaires." A handful of these have never been translated into English, including Invasion of the Sea, written in 1904 when large-scale canal digging was very much a part of the political, economic, and military strategy of the world's imperial powers.

Instead of linking two seas, as existing canals (the Suez and the Panama) did, Verne proposed a canal that would create a sea in the heart of the Sahara Desert. The story raises a host of concerns — environmental, cultural, and political. The proposed sea threatens the nomadic way of life of those Islamic tribes living on the site, and they declare war. The ensuing struggle is finally resolved only by a cataclysmic natural event. This Wesleyan edition features notes, appendices and an introduction by Verne scholar Arthur B. Evans, as well as reproductions of the illustrations from the original French edition.

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Jules Verne (1828 - 1905) was the first author to popularize the literary genre of science fiction. Laying a careful scientific foundation for his fantastic adventure stories, he forecast with remarkable accuracy many scientific achievements of the 20th century. He anticipated flights into outer space, submarines, helicopters, air conditioning, guided missiles, and motion pictures long before they were developed.

Edward Baxter is a contributor to The Jules Verne Encyclopedia (1996), and his previous translations include Verne's The Fur Country (1987).

Arthur B. Evans is Professor of French in the Modern Languages Department at DePauw University and Managing Editor of the scholarly journal Science Fiction Studies. He is the author of Jules Verne Rediscovered: Didacticism and the Scientific Novel (1988).