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Excellent pre travel service from Tara

We have used VJV before had had a wonderful time so have booked the Nile cruise including Aswan. We've not travelled yet, but I just wanted to praise the exceptional service we have received from Tara who went above and beyond in sorting out some specific requests when her colleagues had told me it was impossible previously. She is a credit to VJV.

Date of experience : 18 April 2024

Recently went to Mexico and Guatemala…

Recently went to Mexico and Guatemala with this company. Awful holiday, expensive but done cheaply. Coming through immigration, we had to walk to our bus and the car barrier came down onto my husbands head, splitting the skin and causing him to collapse. We have been offered £300 as a goodwill gesture, because it was out with their control. I asked them if he had died which he could have done (he is 77) would they have said the same thing. Absolutely disgraceful. Please don't book with this company, they do not have your safety as a priority. Their standards have dropped considerably over the last year. I first went with them 35 years ago but will never go with them again. No customer care.

Date of experience : 08 March 2024

JV Golden Triangle India tour

Just came back from JV Golden Triangle India 8 night tour. Fabulous hotels, lovely local guide who organized it faultlessly and small group of just 7 people.

Date of experience : 10 February 2024

Fantastic 600 Mile Nile from Aswan to Cairo…

A SUPER well organised Cruise down the 600 Mile Nile on a comfortable river cruiser MS Darakum Delightfulyl professional and helpful crew. Fantastic food with loads of choice. A knowledgeable guide enhanced the visits at all sites Avoiding the heat and crowds where possible Extra Vjv experiences were a bonus and fun. Cruise includes time to relax and enjoy the interesting river banks passing by.. Finishing in Cairo for the amazing Pyramids, Sphinx and City. Good value for money as everything included, except the Balloon Ride over Valley of Kings.Definitly worth the extra !

Date of experience : 01 September 2023

Appalling. Save your money and use another company

The holiday booked was cancelled 3 weeks before departure. The replacement offered was appalling. It was a so called River Cruise from Stasbourg....No cruise that i know if is so bad. The boat rattles, creaks and bangs the 'cabins' are more akin to a prison cell. The Heath and Safety is dreadful with evacuation over 3 adjoining boats on narrow badly placed planks positively dangerous. During the night, it would be impossible to cross and anyone who is elderly or has mobility problems would simply be left behind. The quality is dire. Don't bother. For a much lower cost I have booked P&O Stateroom for 2 people next December. VJV did exactly the same to a consultant friend who has also provided the most dreadful reviews. They are not what they were and really couldn't care less.

Date of experience : 04 December 2023

Went to uzbeckistan office staff…

Went to uzbeckistan office staff useless I think they are working from home. Not told the printer had broken when I kept emailing. 16 days late receiving info Tour guide young and arrogant No whispers to hear the guide talking when you move away Food repetitive One lady going into dementia One man nearky 90 I have elderly mum so wanted to be without the elderly and taking care of them Photos taken guide gave us hats we provided emails still not received. ! Being used for marketing material. ?! Better not as I will be contacting them. Riveria travel for me !

Date of experience : 30 July 2023

Very poor at responding.

"I´ll get back to you tomorrow" obviously has a different meaning in the Jules Verne lexicon. That´s what we´ve been told three times now, but are still waiting. 20 years ago Jules Verne were the Gold Standard, by which other tour agents were judged, now they are some way below the middle of the pack. That´s a real shame. One commuinication you will receive though is the persistent feedback requests - "Tell us how did we do". Well, I can´t answer that, because you still didn´t do anything!

Date of experience : 17 March 2023

The Golden Road to Samarkand

The Golden Road to Samarkand - Ukbekistan. What a fantastic holiday. The country is culturally rich, very friendly and so much to see and do. Made all the better due to the exacting organisation and admin of VJV customer services team and the exceptional in country guide. He was exceptional. All over every detail, nothing was too much trouble and we were well informed at all times. He earned his tip and more. I can highly recommend this company and this tour. You may find cheaper versions, but having seen other companies whilst I was there, at times they appeared chaotic and disorganised. I having nothing but praise and good words for the the local guide and VJV.

Date of experience : 06 October 2023

Sorrento with VJV

I recently travelled to Sorrento with VJV and thoroughly enjoyed the trip. I’ve been on many previous trips (8) with this company and have always been happy with the service in the UK and when on holiday. The negative comments on here are puzzling. VJV trips typically have small numbers of people on them and a light touch when it comes to being guided. I really like this - I don’t want to be kept under close ‘supervision’, but maybe some people do!

Date of experience : 17 June 2023

NO, DON'T CALL ME BACK

Haven't managed to browse the site at all, thanks to unmoveable."Can we call you back?" pleas that obscured the screen seconds after i clicked on a holiday. Clearly this company is too in love with technological hard-sell techniques to appreciate how off-putting they are.

Date of experience : 11 May 2023

Company Not as Good as it Used to be

Sadly since covid the company has lost site of any customer care. There is no loyalty for all the years of travelling with them, and the company feels as though its run by a group of youngsters with little knowledge of the holiday destinations they are selling.

Date of experience : 16 February 2023

Lacking in knowledge of Schengen

Lacking in knowledge of Schengen. VJV rep was unable to advise on Schengen passport rules when flying from the UK to an EU country and then on to another EU country without returning home first. This was surprising given they are a company that have many EU multi-country tours.

Date of experience : 02 June 2023

The very best Safari experience in Tanzania.

We booked a Safari to Tanzania through VJV - and everything worked just perfectly! Their partner in Africa is Tent with a View - a company who reflect perfectly the service from VJV. Everything worked just as planned - the accommodation was quirky and fun -the food extraordinary (I wasn't expecting that in the middle of the Serengeti) - but most of all the people were warm, friendly and loved to share their culture and way of life. Simply the best experience - awesome! No complaints at all - the brochure tells you what to expect but they delivered so much more. Thank you!

Date of experience : 28 June 2022

Why advertise regional flights?

I was interested in a holiday advertised as having regional flights. Asked for call back which I received. However the sales advisor seemed intent on persuading me to book a holiday with a flight from London and evaded my questions as to why regional flights were advertised. She was so patronising, obtuse and bossy I ended the phone call by saying I wouldn’t want to travel with JV anyway after this experience

Date of experience : 06 February 2023

Avoid Egyptair, if you can’t then don’t book the holiday

We enjoyed our holiday, organised by Jules Verne, it was the return home that was the issue. Another tour group arranged the early flights, Luxor - Cairo, to pick up the Heathrow flight that afternoon, Jules Berne arranged the early afternoon flight. Which was late. So we missed the connection and had to spend the night in a hotel chosen by Egyptair. The Le Passage at Cairo airport. Which was horrible. I wondered if Jules Verne would hide behind the ‘nothing to do with me, contact Egyptair’ nonsense and, guess what… ? They did. No discussion about how this sort of situation might be avoided in the future or, indeed, our thoughts on how the Egypt holiday might be improved. Nope… they have our money and that’s that. Well they won’t have anymore of it. Ever.

Date of experience : 25 April 2023

Excellent tours

We used Jules Verne to book a tour to Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. It was very well organised and a reasonable price for what we got. Phone information was good and the brochures are excellent. We have just booked a tour to Burma and, again, everything so far has been very efficient.

Date of experience : 28 February 2011

No more holidays with VJV

Having travelled twice before with VJV, this time was one not to be repeated. I managed to get a bad cold after a few days and certain people in the group told me I couldn't eat with them and I should go back to my room. The tour manager did nothing to sort this out so I was ostracised for having a cold which I clearly caught whilst on holiday. The tour rep was very pleasant but age inappropriate (20) for the group who were from 64 to late 80s. Although food was served to me in the lounge bar by the time it came it was stone cold. I do not expect to go on holiday and be treated as if I have the plague when I and many other people on the Renoir riverboat were also coughing and sneezing. My previous trip with VJV started badly as they booked flights from Heathrow that were too late to catch the riverboat in Lyon. The flight was delayed but even if it had been on time the boat had already sailed. We ended up wheeling our cases a long way to a hotel to eat, then getting in a small coach for a mad dash to catch up with the boat with a driver who drove extremely dangerously. £100 was given by way of compensation to spend on another holiday with them which I used for the holiday above. Even then they seemed reluctant to allow me to use the £100 having to check with managers even though it was on their records.

Date of experience : 27 September 2023

Dealing with the unexpected

Just completed my second trip with vjv and both have been excellent. I suspect that the overall low rating is because the majority of highly satisfied customers remain silent. Vjv book flights for their customers but it is not their responsibility to help with airport and in-flight issues. If things go wrong, it is the airline's responsibility to sort out problems. On arrival and throughout the itinerary it is the local guides and drivers who represent vjv. In my experience they have been very good. This trip included a client who was ill and became disabled during the trip.The guide earned our respect as he made every effort to ensure the traveller was looked after, paying for a wheelchair and temporary carer out of his own pocket. He assured me that he was confident that vjv would reimburse his expenses. He said the company never queried such unexpected costs. He was confident of their support. Vjv also arranged for wheelchair assistance when we arrived at LHR. That is an indication of good service. I shall be booking another trip with them.

Date of experience : 18 April 2023

Room for improvement !!!!!

Did VJV's Wild Namibia tour Sep 2023. This was my third more recent tour with VJV having done tours with them in the past. Although the actual booking of the tour seemed well organized the after care was very poor. Slow response to emails, poor or incorrect information given and misrepresentation of the tour where the itinery given (and expected to get) did not match the experience on offer to us. A larger than expected group (they added an extra group of six) so to accommodate the now group of 12 we were split into different accommodations. I enquired before the start of the tour, when I learned about the additions, if we would all have the same accommodation and was told yes. this was not the case. The address given for the lodge was incorrect, not even in the same area as stated in the itinery and NO game drives as stated in the itinery (which is what a safari in Africa is all about). Other accommodation used on the tour were of an ok standard but a couple were awful with no air con and poorly maintained with flooding showers. The excuse used is that Africa is a relatively a basic country and these things happen but that's not the case. There were many better lodges nearby with much better facilities. Myself and other guests complained to the local guides used about our individual issues but heard nothing from VJV. I took the privately guided option at an additional £1,300 and was told I would have that to end of the tour at Victoria falls. Then I was told would only have until Botswana, then told would have all the way and so on depending who I spoke to on the phone. It all seemed like the tour was being made up as it went along. I was supposed to have a private car/jeep to the end of the tour and other 11 split between to mini buses but all twelve of us had to squash into a small van to get us to the last hotel with the sorry apologies again. Seems there is not much communication between VJV and local agents used before and whilst on the tours. On my return I approached VJV for compensation for the misrepresentations in there itinery and was offered £200. They admitted that they had issues with the holiday confirmations sent out and were very sorry. I refused the £200 and we finally settled on £400. Nothing can make up for the safari experienced promised but didn't get on this expensive tour. I totally agree with one of the other comments that it's run by young girls that don't have any experience about the places they are selling and about travel in general. Years ago VJV were excellent and I had every confidence in them but sadly not now. This is my third bad experience with them. Shame as they do have some lovely holidays Would I go with them again......possibly but know from experience to take every thing they say with a pinch of salt and to check every thing out for myself....even flights.

Date of experience : 16 September 2023

Their local agents aren’t up to the job.

We did the 600 mile Nile tour and whilst the Egyptian history side was excellent, the catering and travel arrangements were not at all. Before ever booking I checked they could cater for our dietary requirements and was emphatically assured it would be no problem. It started badly on the flight as there was no food for us, and as there was a delay we missed the connecting flight. Since Jules Verne don’t have personnel with you we were left for hours in the airport with no food or even water while we waited for one of their agent’s staff to sort things out for us. This meant most of our group missed booking onto the early flights the next day and were finally taken to a hotel with mouldy bathrooms and questionable catering early in the morning. That meant we missed the first day of the holiday and when we did finally arrive it was a mad dash to take us round what we had missed. Whilst the delay is not their fault, since there was such a tight window for the connection, and it is well known that Heathrow has real problems with baggage loading, this delay was inevitable. However no one did anything for the 9 1/2 hours we were on the plane to sort things out ready for our arrival and we were left to wait for many more hours. On arriving at the boat our fears were realised when it became evident that the catering crew had no idea about our dietary requirements or how to meet them. It took a lot of explanation but things were very hit and miss and nothing was labelled - needless to say we both lost a lot of weight as you are 12 nights on the boat and there is no opportunity to leave to purchase your own food. Jules Verne charge a premium service but then turn you over to their local agents without thoroughly checking that all has been put in place for clients - not good enough for the high cost of these holidays. The actual itinerary (other than the badly planned first day) is really good, and the Nile is glorious, but the catering is just not acceptable. We were lucky we weren’t eating the meat dishes as several people missed a day or two of the holiday as they had severe tummy upsets. For the money they charge there are better tour operators out there - we saw how useful it was to have a rep on the plane with you as all the other groups were sorted onto flights and into hotels hours before us.

Date of experience : 22 October 2022

• Tour Account ›
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• Travel Forum
• Beyond Europe
• Travel to Uzbekis...

Travel to Uzbekistan or other "Stans" in September 2019

Any suggestions for travel to Central Asia would be welcome: tour operators, itineraries, weather conditions, not-to-miss, etc. Thanks!

Have a friend who is interested in that part of the world, he has used the tour group Voyages Jules Verne. www.vjv.com . They are a UK based company, the headline cost of the tours includes airfares from the UK but they also quote a price excluding airfare so you make your own way there. My friend's next trip with them is to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - I'm interested to see how that goes …..

There are several more UK based tour groups who go to that part of the world, I can try to list them if that is of help. But I'm sure there must be many more options in the US.

Thanks Katie! We are trying to avoid US companies as we find the prices start at double what a local, on-the-ground tour company charges.

If you are male, you may or may not get much out of this link, but a regular travel blogger I follow went to the 'Stans' 2 years ago and has planning tips and things to consider. https://blog.women-on-the-road.com/tag/centralasia/ I think a good amount of the info is not gender specific, but just gloss over the stuff that is ;-)

I would start with some good books (Lonely Planet etc.) - you'll get a lot more substantive info that way. Hopefully they will list some good local tour operators, or else you'll just have to go with the flow until you get on the ground. I agree that getting any tour operator from the US just means a big markup and, in the end, they'll likely use local guides anyway.

I believe Uzbekistan has relaxed their visitor visa process , but it still warrants checking out in advance.

LyubaTour is a small but very well-traveled company based in Bulgaria, who co-produce Rick's Bulgaria tour. They have a few itineraries for you to consider at https://lyuba.tours/we-explore/ . I did an excellent Kyrgystan+Kazakhstan tour with Yuri two years ago (not an exact duplicate of any current schedule).

Here's a link to a previous post on a similar topic. Do a search as well as check out some guidebooks. Uzbekistan has the heavy hitters in terms of historical Silk Road cities/town. All comes down to what you want to see, do, and how much time you want to spend.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/been-to-uzbekistan

Several years ago we used an Uzbeki travel agency called Advantour for our trip to Central Asia. The agency was easy to work with and put together a great trip.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.

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Extraordinary Voyages , the Author’s 54-Volume Collection of “Geographical Fictions”">Behold All 42 Maps from Jules Verne’s Extraordinary Voyages , the Author’s 54-Volume Collection of “Geographical Fictions”

in Literature , Maps | February 11th, 2021 Leave a Comment

Jules Verne’s tales of adven­ture take his char­ac­ters around the world, through the deep­est seas, even into the cen­ter of the Earth—on jour­neys, that is, dif­fi­cult or impos­si­ble in the 19th cen­tu­ry. Verne him­self, how­ev­er, spent most his life in France, writ­ing of places he had not seen. In one apoc­ryphal sto­ry, the young Jules Verne is caught try­ing to sneak aboard a ship bound for the Indies and promis­es his father he will hence­forth trav­el “only in his imag­i­na­tion.” Whether or not he made such a vow, he seemed to keep it, though the idea that he nev­er trav­eled at all is a “tire­some canard,” writes Ter­ry Har­pold in an essay titled “ Verne’s Car­togra­phies .”

Verne’s famed nov­els Twen­ty Leagues Under the Sea , Jour­ney to the Cen­ter of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days con­sti­tute only a frac­tion of the 54-vol­ume Voy­ages Extra­or­di­naires , a col­lec­tion of fic­tion con­ceived on the basis of a sci­ence we might not think of as a rich field for mate­r­i­al.

“Of the 80 nov­els and oth­er short sto­ries he pub­lished,” geo­g­ra­ph­er Lionel Dupuy writes , “62 make up the cor­pus of Extra­or­di­nary Voy­ages  ( Voy­ages Extra­or­di­naires ). These books, in which imag­i­na­tion played a vital role, were termed ‘geo­graph­i­cal nov­els,’ a cat­e­go­ry the author him­self used for them.”

Verne would also use the term “sci­en­tif­ic nov­el,” but he made it clear which sci­ence he meant:

I always had a pas­sion for study­ing geog­ra­phy, as oth­ers did for his­to­ry or his­tor­i­cal research. I real­ly believe that it is my pas­sion for maps and great explor­ers around the world that led me to write the first of my long series of geo­graph­i­cal nov­els.

As a geo­graph­i­cal nov­el­ist, and mem­ber of the Geo­graph­i­cal Soci­ety from 1865 to 1898, it was only fit­ting that Verne include as many maps as he could in his quest, as he put it, “to depict the Earth, and not just the Earth, but the uni­verse, for I have some­times car­ried my read­ers far away from the Earth in my nov­els.” To that end, “thir­ty of the nov­els” in the first edi­tion of Voy­ages Extra­or­di­naires” pub­lished by Pierre-Jules Het­zel, “include one or more engraved maps,” Har­pold points out. “There are forty-two such engrav­ings in all.” View them here .

“These images and design ele­ments are nuanced, grace­ful, and evoca­tive; draft­ed and engraved by some of the finest artists of the time,” Har­pold writes. “They rep­re­sent the pin­na­cle of late nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry pop­u­lar-sci­en­tif­ic car­tog­ra­phy.” They also rep­re­sent the author of geo­graph­i­cal fic­tions who, as both a sci­en­tist and artist, refused to let either form of think­ing take over the text, com­bin­ing myth and poet­ry with obser­va­tion and mea­sure­ment. As Dupuy puts it, “in Extra­or­di­nary Voy­ages , the pas­sage from real­i­ty to imag­i­na­tion and back is encour­aged by the emer­gence of a ‘mar­velous’ that we can call ‘geo­graph­i­cal.’”

In one sense, we might think of most kinds of fic­tion as geo­graph­i­cal, in that they describe places we have nev­er seen. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly so in fic­tions that include maps of their imag­ined ter­ri­to­ries, such as those of William Faulkn­er, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Louis Steven­son, and so on . We might look to Jules Verne as their tow­er­ing for­bear. “Sev­er­al of the maps appear­ing in the Het­zel Voy­ages were draft­ed under Verne’s close super­vi­sion or were based on his sketch­es or designs. Maps in three of the nov­els ( 20,000 Leagues [top], Hat­teras [fur­ther up], Three Rus­sians ) were draft­ed by Verne him­self, whose tal­ents in this regard were appre­cia­ble,” writes Har­pold.

Verne’s maps mix real and fic­tion­al place names and are “always ambigu­ous and semi­ot­i­cal­ly unsta­ble objects.” They appear almost as admis­sions of the myth­mak­ing that goes into the sci­ence of geog­ra­phy and the act of explo­ration. Near the end of his life, maps became more real to Verne than the world out­side. As he grew too weary even to leave the neigh­bor­hood, he wrote to Alexan­dre Dumas fils , “If I have main­tained a taste for work… , noth­ing remains of my youth. I live in the heart of my province and nev­er budge from it, even to go to Paris. I trav­el only by maps.” See all of Verne’s maps from the Het­zel edi­tion of Extra­or­di­nary Voy­ages, such as those for Around the World in Eighty Days (above) and Five Weeks in a Bal­loon (below), here .

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jules Verne’s Most Famous Books Were Part of a 54-Vol­ume Mas­ter­piece, Fea­tur­ing 4,000 Illus­tra­tions: See Them Online

An Atlas of Lit­er­ary Maps Cre­at­ed by Great Authors: J.R.R Tolkien’s Mid­dle Earth, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Trea­sure Island & More

William Faulkn­er Draws Maps of Yok­na­p­ataw­pha Coun­ty, the Fic­tion­al Home of His Great Nov­els

Josh Jones  is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at  @jdmagness

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Comments (0) |

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Voyages Jules Verne

9 Trips match your criteria (1 - 9 shown)

Cruise the Heart of Central America

Coiba National Park, Panama City, Punta Arenas

• Visit the Smithsonian Institute
• Visit Panama City and the Canal
• Excursion to the Darrien National Park and Mogue Embera Reserve
• Visit to Manuel Antonio National Park
• Visit to Savegre River

National Parks, Nature & Wildlife, Sailing

Dalmatian Island Explorer

• Visit to Hvar
• Walking tour including the St. Stephen's
• Vis for independent exploration.
• Visit the cathedral and Maritime Museum.

Cultural, Hiking & Walking

Grand Tour of China

Beijing, Chengdu, Great Wall of China, Hong Kong, Shanghai

• Visit the Forbidden City and Tian An Men Square
• Visit Shuanglin Temple
• Visit the Terracotta Army and Great Wild Goose Pagoda
• Visit Nanjing Road and the Bund.
• Visit the West Lake, Six Harmonious Pagoda

Cultural, Small Ship Cruise, Religious

Jordan's Red Sea

Amman, Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum

• Visit Mount Nebo and Madaba
• Excursion on the 'Yellow Submarine'
• Viewing the Red Sea marine splendours and coral reserve.
• Includes a 90-minute Bedouin jeep drive

Cultural, Local Immersion & Homestays

Krakow Preserved

Krakow, Warsaw

• Eexcursion to Auschwitz-Birkenau
• Visit the castle, royal chambers and cathedral
• Enjoy a traditional Jewish-style dinner with music and performers in the old Jewish district of Kazimierz.

Secret Italy

Assisi, Perugia, Rome

• visit San Francesco church for Piero della Francesca's fresco cycle 'Legend of the True Cross'
• visit to Assisi, including the 13th-century Basilica of St. Francis
• See the highest waterfall in Europe
• The most beautiful Renaissance palace in Italy and its art treasures

Cultural, National Parks, Nature & Wildlife

Splendours of Southern India

Chennai, Kerala, Kochi

• Visit the Chennai Government museum
• Visit Shore Temple
• Visit Brihadeshwara Temple
• Visit Thirumalai Nayak Palace and Gandhi Memorial

Cultural, Religious

Venice Simplon Orient Express

Dolomites, Paris, Venice

• Enjoy a walking tour of Venice
• Enjoy the ride on the legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express
• Enjoy looking at paranomic scenery from your window
• See breathtaking views of Dolomites & Alberg pass

Cultural, National Parks, Nature & Wildlife, Train & Rail Journeys

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Reading Books in Order

The Voyages extraordinaires: Jules Verne’s Amazing Journeys around the world

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Let’s explore the world with Voyages Extraordinaires , a classic adventures series written by French writer Jules Verne,

Reading The Extraordinary Voyages by Jules Verne

As a French, I can’t speak of the translation of Verne’s books into English. The famous writer is part of the public domain, so his works are easily available in French, and you can also find many older translations of his novels on Project Gutenberg . Some of his later works have been translated into English quite late – and are not part of the public domain for the moment.

In all cases, if possible, it seems that people recommend checking out more modern translations. I let you decide!

The Best of Voyages Extraordinaires

Les « Voyages Extraordinaires » officially consists of 62 novels and 18 short stories. As most stories (with a few exceptions – see below!) are stand-alones, you can pick one that interests you and read it! To help you, here’s a selection of the most famous and best of Jules Verne’s series (in no particular order):

– Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days, 1873) – Voyage au centre de la Terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864) – Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, 1869–70) – De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865) – Les Enfants du Capitaine Grant (In Search of the Castaways, 1867–68) – L’Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island, 1874–75) – Michel Strogoff (Michael Strogoff, 1876) – Le Château des Carpathes (The Carpathian Castle, 1892) – Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon, 1863)

Les Voyages Extraordinaires, The Complete Reading List

Following is a list of the fifty-four books published during Jules Verne’s lifetime, along with the most frequent English-language title for each. With a few exceptions, most of the novels in the Voyages series were initially serialized in periodicals, most notably Magasin d’Éducation et de Récreation . The dates mentioned are the dates of the first publication in book format.

Most of Verne’s books are standalone, with the following exceptions:

• Around The Moon (1870) continues the story told in From the Earth to the Moon (1865). It’s a direct sequel, starting exactly where the first novel finishes. 
• The Mysterious Island (1875) can be read as a standalone but also works as a very loose sequel to In Search of the Castaways (1868) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870). A few characters from those books appear in The Mysterious Island . You will not lose anything to read them independently.
• Master of the World (1904) is a sequel to Robur the Conqueror (1886).
• An Antarctic Mystery (1897) is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838).
• The Castaways of the Flag (1900) is a sequel to Johann Wyss’ novel The Swiss Family Robinson (1812).

• Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon, 1863)
• Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras (The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, 1864-66)
• Voyage au centre de la Terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864)
• De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865)
• Les Enfants du capitaine Grant (In Search of the Castaways, aka Captain Grant’s Children, 1867-68)
• Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, 1869-70)
• Autour de la lune (Around The Moon, 1870)
• Une ville flottante (A Floating City, 1871)
• Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais (The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa, aka Measuring a Meridian, 1872)
• Le Pays des fourrures (The Fur Country, aka Seventy Degrees North Latitude, 1873)
• Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days, 1873)
• L’Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island, 1874-75)
• Le Chancellor (The Survivors of the Chancellor, 1875)
• Michel Strogoff (Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar, 1876)
• Hector Servadac (Off on a Comet, 1877)
• Les Indes noires (The Child of the Cavern, aka The Underground City, 1877)
• Un capitaine de quinze ans (Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen, 1878)
• Les Cinq Cents Millions de la Bégum (The Begum’s Millions, 1879)
• Les Tribulations d’un chinois en Chine (Tribulations of a Chinaman in China, 1879)
• La Maison à vapeur (The Steam House, 1880)
• La Jangada (Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon, 1881)
• L’École des Robinsons (Godfrey Morgan, aka School for Crusoes, 1882)
• Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray, 1882)
• Kéraban-le-têtu (Kéraban the Inflexible, 1883)
• L’Étoile du sud (The Vanished Diamond, aka The Southern Star, 1884)
• L’Archipel en feu (The Archipelago on Fire, 1884)
• Mathias Sandorf (Mathias Sandorf, 1885)
• Un billet de loterie (The Lottery Ticket, aka Ticket No. 9672, 1886)
• Robur-le-Conquérant (Robur the Conqueror, aka The Clipper of the Clouds, 1886)
• Nord contre Sud (North Against South, aka Texar’s Revenge, 1887)
• Le Chemin de France (The Flight to France, 1887)
• Deux Ans de vacances (Two Years’ Vacation, 1888)
• Famille-sans-nom (Family Without a Name, 1889)
• Sans dessus dessous (The Purchase of the North Pole, aka Topsy-Turvy, 1889)
• César Cascabel (César Cascabel, 1890)
• Mistress Branican (Mistress Branican, 1891)
• Le Château des Carpathes (The Carpathian Castle, 1892)
• Claudius Bombarnac (Claudius Bombarnac, aka The Adventures of a Special Correspondent, 1892)
• P’tit-Bonhomme (Foundling Mick, 1893)
• Mirifiques Aventures de Maître Antifer (Captain Antifer, 1894)
• L’Île à hélice (Propeller Island, aka The Floating Island, 1895)
• Face au drapeau (Facing the Flag, 1896)
• Clovis Dardentor (Clovis Dardentor, 1896)
• Le Sphinx des glaces (An Antarctic Mystery, aka The Sphinx of the Ice Realm, 1897)
• Le Superbe Orénoque (The Mighty Orinoco, 1898)
• Le Testament d’un excentrique (The Will of an Eccentric, 1899)
• Seconde Patrie (The Castaways of the Flag, aka Second Fatherland, 1900)
• Le Village aérien (The Village in the Treetops, 1901)
• Les Histoires de Jean-Marie Cabidoulin (The Sea Serpent, 1901)
• Les Frères Kip (The Kip Brothers, 1902)
• Bourses de voyage (Travel Scholarships, 1903)
• Un drame en Livonie (A Drama in Livonia, 1904)
• Maître du monde (Master of the World, 1904)
• L’Invasion de la mer (Invasion of the Sea, 1905)

The next eight novels were published posthumously as part of the Voyages Extraordinaires . Originally written by Verne, some have been revised and expanded by his son Michel Verne (uncredited). No manuscript has been found for The Thompson Travel Agency , leading to believe that this novel might be exclusively Michel’s work.

• Le Phare du bout du monde (The Lighthouse at the End of the World, 1905)
• Le Volcan d’or (The Golden Volcano, 1906)
• L’Agence Thompson and Co (The Thompson Travel Agency, 1907)
• La Chasse au météore (The Chase of the Golden Meteor, 1908)
• Le Pilote du Danube (The Danube Pilot, 1908)
• Les Naufragés du “Jonathan” (The Survivors of the “Jonathan”, 1909)
• Le Secret de Wilhelm Storitz (The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz, 1910)
• L’Étonnante Aventure de la mission Barsac (The Barsac Mission, 1919)

Our Voyage is not over yet, as the two following short story collections are also considered part of Verne’s series:

• Le Docteur Ox (Doctor Ox, 1874)
• Hier et Demain (Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1910) (posthumous, with stories completed or modified by Michel Verne)

As we talking about shorter works, following is the list of short stories released alongside one of the series’ novels:

– Les Forceurs de blocus (The Blockade Runners, published with A Floating City, 1871) – Martin Paz (Martin Paz, published with The Survivors of the Chancellor, 1875) – Un drame au Mexique (A Drama in Mexico, published with Michael Strogoff, 1876) – Les révoltés de la Bounty (The Mutineers of the Bounty, published with The Begum’s Millions, 1879) – Dix heures en chasse (Ten Hours Hunting , published with The Green Ray, 1882) – Frritt-Flacc (Frritt-Flacc, published with The Lottery Ticket, 1886) – Gil Braltar (Gil Braltar, published with The Flight to France, 1887)

More About Les Voyages Extraordinaires

Jules verne’s influence and legacy.

Sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury once observed, “ We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne. ” Jules Verne, who is regarded as a “father of science-fiction” with H.G. Wells , is the second most translated author in history, behind only Agatha Christie and coming before William Shakespeare.

Pioneering submarine designer Simon Lake wrote in his biography that “Jules Verne was in a sense the director-general of my life” and aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont cited Verne as his favorite writer.

Polar explorer Richard E. Byrd, the astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission, the pioneers of rocketry Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, and Hermann Oberth, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, the world-renowned speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel, and the French general Hubert Lyautey all drew inspiration from Jules Verne’s works in some way.

Verne had also a significant literary impact on a number of authors, including Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Blaise Cendrars, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel Aymé, René Barjavel, Georges Perec and Jean Cocteau. Arthur C. Clarke wrote that “ Jules Verne had already been dead for a dozen years when I was born. Yet I feel strongly connected to him, and his works of science fiction had a major influence on my own career. He is among the top five people I wish I could have met in person. “

Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson), has also said having a long-standing fascination with Captain Nemo, and with the sea in general, thanks to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and The Mysterious Island .

We can add many more names to the list as his influence on literary and scientific works is unmeasurable, and the man is also cited as a major influence on the steampunk genre .

Jules Verne’s Stories on Screen

Jules Verne was publishing one or two books annually, and even after he died in 1905, his work was still released regularly until his last original book in 1919. Even then, his stories were already considered classics and filmmakers didn’t wait to seize his work and produce adaptations.

Adaptations of Verne’s tales have been made as early movie shorts, serials, feature films, miniseries, and television shows, his stories retold through the years giving life to iconic characters such as Phileas Fogg and Captain Nemo.

Though not a direct adaptation of Verne, A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune, 1902) directed by French filmmaker Georges Méliès is considered one of the earliest science fiction films in cinema history and the first Verne’s adaptation as the film is inspired in part by From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon .

Around the World in 80 Days is one of his most adapted novels, starting in 1913 in Germany with a movie directed by Carl Werner followed by another adaptation in 1919 from Richard Oswald (both having disappeared). The most recognized adaptation of this novel was released in 1956. Directed by Michael Anderson and produced by Mike Todd, the movie starred David Niven as Phileas Fogg who attempts to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days, Cantinflas as Passepartout, and Shirley MacLaine as Princess Aouda. They spared no expense to give life to this adventure, delivering a big spectacle that is now considered a classic.

Among other favorite adaptations of Verne’s books, we also have the 1954’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea featuring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, and Peter Lorre who was the third highest-grossing film of this year and is today considered an early precursor of the steampunk genre.

A few years later, James Mason finds himself in another Verne adaptation, this time playing Sir Oliver Lindenbrook in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) where he goes to explore the depths of the Earth and finds commercial success. Though maybe less famous than the two previous movies cited, it is still established as the most successful adaptation of this book.

The end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties were certainly The Height of Verne’s adaptations, with Master Of The World (1961), Mysterious Island (1961), and In Search Of The Castaways (1962) among the noticeable adaptations.

Verne’s filmmaking continued in the next decades, with shifts in tones, animation, new aesthetics, and even pastiches, though few movies made an impact. Verne quite found its place on television with new adaptations in telefilms and miniseries in the nineties. When his works became public domain, it led to a resurgence of new adaptations and new visions representing the time period, including movies like Around The World In 80 Days (2004) and Journey To The Center Of The Earth (2008).

Jules Verne’s stories continue to inspire and be adapted in many forms for the screen.

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Jules Verne in 1892, photo: Wikimedia

“You like the sea, Captain?”

“Yes; I love it! The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides… The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it?”

The world of Jules Verne was a remarkable one. Through the novels which comprise The Extraordinary Voyages, Les Voyages Extraordinaire, and the beautifully detailed illustrations which accompanied them, Verne remarkably envisioned what is common place to us nearly a century and a half later: hot air balloons, helicopters, airplanes, submarines, exploration of the moon, the north and south poles, and the use of hydrogen as an energy source. The names of his characters and inventions, such as Captain Nemo, Phileas Fogg, and the submarine Nautilus have become part of popular culture. Considered the “Father of Science Fiction”, Jules Verne was a true visionary.

Jules Gabriel Verne was born on February 8, 1828 on the small island of Feydeau, in Nantes , France, a busy maritime port city on the Loire River in the Upper Brittany region of Western France. The house at 2, quai Jean-Bart, where he spent the first 14 years– and the daily life of the islands, ports and boats– became the nexus of much of his work. It is said, when he was 11 years old, he clandestinely embarked aboard the three-masted  La Coralie, bound for the Indies, but before the ocean-going vessel put to sea, it was intercepted by his father. The authenticity of this incident is far from certain, but his imagination and passion for travel and adventure proved undeniable.

At age six, Verne was sent to the first of a series of four boarding schools he would attend. His first teacher, the widow of a naval captain who had disappeared 30 years before, often told her students exciting stories about her missing husband being a castaway like Robinson Crusoe, who would eventually return from a desert island. This theme and others made an indelible impression on the young Verne. At the age of eight he was able to recite verses from memory in Greek and Latin.

While attending his last boarding school, in-between courses on rhetoric and philosophy, Verne began to write poetry. The poetry of happenstance was encouraged in his family – births, marriages, celebrations – and he was never without a pad and pencil. His father, a prosperous lawyer, sent him to Paris in 1847 to study law, hoping that as his first-born son, he would follow in his footsteps. Although he earned his law degree, Verne rejected his parents’ middle-class respectability, refusing his father’s offer to open a law practice in Nantes, because he was secretly planning a literary career.

A young Jules Verne in 1856, photo: Wikimedia

Inherently drawn to the literary and theatrical scene in Paris, Verne lived a Bohemian life. He frequented many Parisian salons and befriended a group of artists, and writers that included Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, both of whose work he respectfully emulated. It was through his friendship with Dumas and Dumas son, that his first play, Broken Straws , was produced in 1850, reaping a modicum of success. Despite continued parental pressure, Verne continued to write and in 1852 he took a poorly paid position as secretary of the Théâtre-Lyrique,   in order to have a platform to produce two more of his pieces, Blind Man’s Bluff and The Companions of the Marjolaine.

Verne tried different forms of writing, adding comedies, operettas and short stories to his repertoire. His short stories were particularly good and were frequently published in the popular magazine, The Museum of Families , which was an illustrated French literary journal founded by Émile de Girardin. Surrounded within its pages by illustrious writers such as Dumas and Balzac, Verne couldn’t help but feel fame and fortune was within reach.

In 1856, Verne met, fell in love with, and the following year married, Honorine de Viane, a young widow with two daughters. Realizing he needed a stronger financial foundation for his new family, he began working as a stockbroker alongside his wife’s brother. Membership in the Paris Exchange did not interfere with his daily writing schedule, however, because he adopted a rigorous timetable, rising at five o’clock in the morning in order to put in several hours researching and writing before beginning work at the Bourse. In 1857, he published his first book, The 1857 Salon.

Verne’s personality was contradictory, not terribly unusual for a writer. Capable of extreme conviviality, he was equally happy alone in his study or when sailing the English Channel in a converted fishing boat. Verne and his wife made approximately 20 sea voyages to the British Isles. These journeys inspired him to pen Backwards to Britain;  however, the novel wasn’t published until 1989, 84 years after his death. In 1861, the couple’s only child, Michel-Jean-Pierre Verne, was born. It was in this period that Verne met the noted geographer and explorer Jacques Arago, who continued to travel extensively despite his blindness (he had lost his sight completely in 1837). The two men became good friends, and Arago’s innovative and witty accounts of his travels led Verne toward developing an new genre of literature called “travel writing.”

By 1862, Verne’s literary career had failed to garner major attention, but his luck changed with the introduction to editor and publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Hetzel encouraged Verne to develop his evolving style- “Roman de la Science”, adventure narratives within the framework of scientific research. In 1863 Hertzel published Five Weeks in a Balloon , or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen , to wide acclaim and Jules Verne the novelist was officially born. Hetzel, who previously rejected Backwards to Britain because he felt it was more cerebral and less exciting, had made the right decision. It was the first in a series of 54 extraordinary journeys by air over central Africa, at that time largely unexplored. Verne retired from stockbroking and devoted himself full time to writing. Years later he would say, “I wrote Five Weeks in a Balloon , not as a story about ballooning, but as a story about Africa. I always was greatly interested in geography and travel, and I wanted to give a romantic description of Africa. Now, there was no means of taking my travelers through Africa otherwise than in a balloon, and that is why a balloon was introduced.”

In 1864, Hetzel published The Adventures of Captain Hatteras , which centered on an expedition to the North Pole (not actually reached until 1909 by Robert Peary), and A Journey to the Center of the Earth which described the adventures of a party of explorers and scientists who descend the crater of an Icelandic volcano and discover an underground world. That same year, Verne’s  Paris in the Twentieth Century was rejected for publication by Hertzel. “No one will believe your depictions of skyscrapers, gas-fuelled cars and mass transit systems, because they are too far fetched.” An interesting historical aside to this particular book is that Verne kept the unpublished manuscript hidden in a large bronze safe. It was discovered by his great-grandson after the sale of the family home.

From the Earth to the Moon, photo: Wikimedia

In 1865 Verne was back in print with From the Earth to the Moon , which described how two adventurous Americans, joined by a Frenchman, arrange to be fired in a hollow projectile from a gigantic cannon that lifts them out of Earth’s gravity field and takes them close to the moon. Verne not only pictured the state of weightlessness his “astronauts” would experience during their flight, but he had the remarkably prescient idea to locate their launching site in Florida, where nearly all of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) launches take place today. Two years later, Hetzel published Verne’s Illustrated Geography of France and Her Colonies . That same year Verne traveled to the United States, and though he only stayed a week, he managed a trip up the Hudson River to Albany, then another to Niagara Falls.

In 1870, Hetzel published Verne’s masterpiece, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea , relating the voyages of the submarine Nautilus, built and commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo, one of the literary figures in whom Verne incorporated many of his own character traits. By this point, his works were being translated into English, and he could comfortably live on the money made from his writing. Although he was enjoying immense professional success, he began experiencing discord in his personal life. He sent his rebellious son to a reformatory school, and a few years later he was shot in the leg by his nephew, Gaston, leaving him with a limp for the rest of his life. A week later his editor and publisher, Hetzel, died, and the following year his mother passed away. A man possessed, Verne continued to travel and write, his writing taking a darker tone with books like The Purchase of the North Pole and Master of the World , the later warning of the social dangers wrought by uncontrolled technological advancements.

Beginning in late 1872, the serialized version of Verne’s famed Around the World in Eighty Days appeared in print. The story of Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout took readers on an extraordinary world tour at a time when travel to exotic lands was seductively alluring. In the century since its original debut, this magical work has been adapted for the theatre, radio, television and film.

Verne remained prolific throughout the decade, penning, The Mysterious Island , The Survivors of the Chancellor , Michael Strogoff , and Dick Sand: A Captain at Fifteen , among many others. Years later his written successes became triumphant when adapted for the stage. Around the World in Eighty Days , Michael Strogoff and The Children of Captain Grant were spectacularly staged productions that filled the theatres of the Châtelet and Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, every night for months.

Jules Verne’s tomb in the cemetery at Amiens, photo: Wikimedia

In 1888, Verne moved to the northern French city of Amiens, Picardie. He was elected a councillor of Amiens, a position he served faithfully for the next 15 years. He also continued to travel and write. His last publication was Master of the World in 1904. After developing diabetes, Jules Verne died at his home on March 24, 1905, but his literary output didn’t end with his death. His now-reformed son assumed control of his father’s uncompleted manuscripts, finishing and publishing them himself. The Lighthouse at the End of the World in 1905, The Golden Volcano in 1906 and The Hunt for the Golden Meteor in 1908.

Verne’s novels have had an extensive influence on scientists and writers from Wernher von Braun to Antoine Saint-Exupéry. In the words of science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, “We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne.”

Jules Verne is buried in La Madeleine Cemetery in Amiens, Picardie, France. A massive marble statue of a man emerging from the earth reaching towards the sky adorns his grave.

Lead photo credit : Jules Verne in 1892, photo: Wikimedia

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By sue aran.

Sue Aran lives in the Gers department of southwest France. She is the owner of French Country Adventures, which provides private, personally-guided, small-group food & wine adventures into Gascony, the Pays Basque and Provence. She writes a monthly blog about her life in France and is a contributor to Bonjour Paris and France Today magazines.