Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

What It's About

A French marine biologist, his loyal servant, and a Canadian harpooner set out on an expedition to hunt down a sea monster that has been attacking ships across the globe. Instead, they find themselves captured aboard the Nautilus, a submarine commanded by the enigmatic Captain Nemo, and drawn into an extraordinary year-long voyage through the world's oceans.

Key Concepts

The novel treats the ocean depths as a last unmapped frontier, and imagines a technological marvel — the submarine Nautilus — decades ahead of real undersea engineering. Running beneath the adventure is the figure of Captain Nemo himself: a brilliant, embittered exile who has cut all ties to human society, raising questions about freedom, isolation, and the cost of withdrawing from the world.

About the Author

Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French novelist born in Nantes. Trained in law before turning to writing, he is often called the "father of science fiction" for blending adventure storytelling with scientific speculation.

About This Edition

This is an 1872 translation by Lewis Page Mercier — the first English translation of the novel to appear, and the only one now in the public domain. It has long been criticised for cutting roughly a fifth of Verne's original text and for numerous mistranslations (including rendering the title's "Seas" as the singular "Sea"), but it remained the standard English version for the better part of a century, and it's the text this edition reproduces.