20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Illustrated Edition)

Author: (French) Jules Verne
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea recounts a strange, mysterious, and unexplained incident that occurred at sea in 1866. Setting aside the various rumors that stirred coastal residents and global public opinion at the time, this story focuses on the heightened excitement among general seafarers. Import and export merchants, ship captains, shipowners, naval officers and officials from various countries, as well as the governments of these two continents, all paid close attention to this matter. The incident went something like this: Recently, several large ships encountered a "giant creature" at sea—a long, spindle-shaped object that sometimes emitted phosphorescent light. Its size was far greater than that of a whale, and it moved much faster. The facts recorded in many maritime logs regarding the appearance of this object (such as its shape, the unestimated speed during movement, the astonishing force of its movement, and its seemingly innate special abilities) were largely consistent. If this creature were a type of whale, its size would far exceed the classifications biologists had previously established for whales.