The French novelist and playwright Jules Verne (1828–1905) was born in Nantes on February 8 and died in Amiens on March 24. He is best known for a series of novels published under the inclusive title Voyages extraordinaires (Extraordinary journeys). Some of these works have been interpreted, especially in English-speaking countries, as early science fiction, or used to stimulate discussion of ethical and political issues related to developments in science and technology—views that are at best only partial appreciations of his achievement.

Verne earned his licence en droit (master's degree in law) in Paris in 1850. After twelve years producing plays, opéras comiques, operettas, and short stories, he became famous in 1863 for his first published novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon. Verne subsequently published some fifty-three novels, among the best-known titles being Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues...