When we think of Jules Verne , we think of the genius behind20,000 Leagues Under the SeaorJourney to the Center of the Earth(my personal favorite of only because I show it first , at an impressible years , and it got me on a sci - fi charge ) . In these story , as well as others likeAround the World in Eighty DaysVerne , bright prescient , compose about flying , space and submerged traveling way , way , way before any of it was actually possible .
But his ability to announce the futurity , specially with heed to technology , which he viewed with a undecomposed superman of skepticism and awe , is well discover in his comparatively unknown novel , Paris in the Twentieth Century . First , the fascinating story behind the publication of the account book …
Verne wrote the book in 1863 , the year before he start publishingJourney to the Center of the Earth . He showed the ms to his publisher , who register it over and scribbled " look twenty long time to compose this book , " in the tolerance . " Nobody today will believe your prophecy , nobody will care about it . " Verne followed Hetzel ’s advice and the manuscript was dropped into a safe where it rest until 1989 ( no , it ’s not a misprint ! ) when it was discovered by Verne ’s great - grandson .
After much plug , the novel was finally published in 1994 . The storey is set in 1960 , nearly 100 years in the future from when Verne write it . He got so much right about the future , it ’s sort of shuddery . But the coolest part was that Paris in the sixties would need another decade before actually catching up to Verne on some of his predictions . The book describes a city where people communicate via a worldwide telegraphic communications meshing ( fax machines ? Internet?)—where mass permute to work in gasoline - power motorcar and high - speed train . He presage that recital would decline , figurer would find our lives , people would live in skyscraper and that criminals would be broadcast to their Death " by electric care . " Pretty interesting , huh ?
