Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist who abandoned law for the theatre and then for the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of some sixty adventure novels built on the science and geography of his day. Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days made him one of the most translated authors in the world. His English reputation long suffered from hasty Victorian translations that cut and altered the text.