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Read extracts:
Ch. 1
How it all began
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Backwards to BritainChambers 1992£15.00/$25.00 |
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Reviews:
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In 1859, a stockbroker travelled to England and Scotland with a musician friend. Although re-routed via Bordeaux (ie "backwards"), they discovered at long last a magical kingdom of steam, wind and rain, poetry and pubs, lochs and bens, Dickens and Scott. The experience so moved Verne that he wrote a book about it, his first full-length narrative. The publisher Hetzel thought something more topical might sell better — and the manuscript was set aside. But Verne obstinately persisted as a writer of prose, often starring British heroes or with a Scottish setting. In the end he became the best-selling novelist, and the most translated, in the world. Backwards into Britain is now published in English for the first time. It is a delightful account of Victorian Liverpool, Edinburgh and London, and a hymn to this strange country. Full of amusing adventures and perceptive analyses, it bears comparison with Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas. These masterpieces would indeed have been impossible without Jules Verne's first known trip outside France. |
Contents1 How it all began |