Journey to the Center of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated with the variant titles A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and A Journey into the Interior of the Earth, is a classic science fiction novel written by French novelist Jules Verne. It was first published in French in 1864, then reissued in 1867 in a revised and expanded edition. Professor Otto Lidenbrock is the tale's central figure, an eccentric German scientist who believes there are volcanic tubes that reach to the very center of the earth.[1] He, his nephew Axel, and their Icelandic guide Hans rappel into Iceland's celebrated inactive volcano Snæfellsjökull.[1] They then contend with many dangers, including cave-ins, subpolar tornadoes, an underground ocean, and living prehistoric creatures from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (the 1867 edition inserted additional prehistoric material).[2] Eventually the three explorers are spewed back to the surface by the eruption of an active volcano, Stromboli, located in southern Italy.
The story begins in May 1863, at the home of Professor Otto Lidenbrock[1] in Hamburg, Germany. While leafing through an original runic manuscript of an Icelandicsaga, Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel[1] find a coded note written in runic script along with the name of a 16th-century Icelandic alchemist, Arne Saknussemm. When translated into English, the note reads:
Go down into the crater of Snaefells Jökull, which Scartaris's shadow caresses just before the calends of July, O daring traveler, and you'll make it to the center of the earth. I've done so. Arne Saknussemm
Lidenbrock departs for Iceland immediately, taking the reluctant Axel with him. After a swift trip via Kiel and Copenhagen, they arrive in Reykjavík. There they hire as their guide Icelander Hans Bjelke, a Danish-speaking eiderduck hunter, then travel overland to the base of Snæfellsjökull.
In late June they reach the volcano and set off into the bowels of the earth, encountering many dangers and strange phenomena. After taking a wrong turn, they run short of water and Axel nearly perishes, but Hans saves them all by tapping into a subterranean river, which shoots out a stream of water that Lidenbrock and Axel name the "Hansbach" in the guide's honor.
Following the course of the Hansbach, the explorers descend many miles and reach an underground world. The travelers build a raft out of semipetrified wood and set sail. While at sea, they encounter prehistoric fish and giant marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs. A lightning storm threatens to destroy the raft and its passengers, but instead throws them onto the site of an enormous fossil graveyard, including bones from the pterodactyl, Megatherium, and mastodon, and the preserved body of a man.
Lidenbrock and Axel venture into a forest featuring primitive vegetation from the Tertiary period; in its depths they are stunned to find a prehistoric humanoid more than twelve feet in height and watching over a herd of mastodons as a shepherd. Fearing it may be hostile, they leave the forest.
Continuing to explore the coastline, the travelers find a passageway marked by Saknussemm as the way ahead, but it has been blocked by a recent cave-in. The adventurers lay plans to blow the rock open with gun cotton, meanwhile paddling their raft out to sea to avoid the blast. On executing this scheme, they find a bottomless pit beyond the impeding rock and are swept into it as the sea rushes down the huge open gap. After spending hours descending at breakneck speed, their raft reverses direction and rises inside a volcanic chimney that ultimately spews them via an eruption into the open air.[5] When they regain consciousness, they learn that they have been ejected from Stromboli, a volcanic island located off Sicily.
The trio returns to Germany, where they enjoy great acclaim; Professor Lidenbrock is hailed as one of the great scientists of the day, Axel marries his sweetheart Gräuben, and Hans returns to his peaceful life in Iceland.
Main characters
Professor Otto Lidenbrock: a German "professor of philosophy, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and many other ologies" at the Johanneum Gymnasium, described as an "old geologist, very gruff and unpleasant".[6]
Axel: Lidenbrock's nephew (Lidenbrock had married the sister of Axel's mother), a young student, affianced.[6]
Hans Bjelke: an Icelandic eiderduck hunter who is hired as their guide; resourceful and imperturbable, described as "stoical"[6]
Gräuben: Lidenbrock's goddaughter, with whom Axel is in love; from Vierlande (region southeast of Hamburg).
Martha: Lidenbrock's housekeeper and cook.
Background and science
In August 1859, Jules Verne visited Scotland, seeing Edinburgh, its castle and the local geological features, including the extinct volcano Arthur's Seat and Castle Rock, a volcanic plug.[7] These would have an influence on his writing.[7] Journey was written according to the mid-19th century scientific understandings of the time.[8] For example, Lidenbrock’s premise for why the group do not encounter elevated temperatures even as they near the base of the Earth’s crust is based on Humphry Davy’s geochemistry (including thw chemical oxidation theory of volcanic eruption) which was later disapproved.[8] However, for an understanding of geology as well as other aspects of scientific information, Verne used Louis Figuier's then recently published 1863 scientific work La Terre avant le déluge (The World before the Deluge).[9] Verne had also made friends with Charles Joseph Sainte-Claire Deville, a noted geologist who specialised in seismic phenomena and who had descended into Stromboli.[6]Leonard Nimoy, in the Signet edition notes that Verne "was able to adapt nearly every important element in the story’s action from contemporary, intellectual, literary, scientific, and geographical thought”.[10] The source for the runic ciphered document of Arne Saknusseman that leads to the adventure was inspired by The Gold-Bug (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe and the runic description came from that in L'univers pittoresque (1845, Firmin Didot).[6] The character Martha (Lidenbrock's housekeeper) was based on Mathurine Paris, a live-in maid who served the Verne household in Jules early years.[11] It is believed that Lidenbrock parodies that of Jules father, Pierre Verne, who was said to be multilingual, scientific and passionate.[6] The name itself was said to have been in honour of Friedrich Lindenbrog (1573-1648), a German bibliophile.[6] Between January and August 1864, combining these influences, Verne wrote Journey.[6]
The original manuscript of Journey is in a private collection in the US.[12] The original French editions of 1864 and 1867 were issued by J. Hetzel et Cie, a major Paris publishing house owned by Pierre-Jules Hetzel. The 1867 edition, originally in a large-octavo format, came out with two new chapters.[2] This included additional information prehistory which had become a distinct focus of academic study in 1865.[2] This included discussion of remains from the Quaternary Era, a living herd of mastodons, and other fictionalised prehistoric events.[2]
For non-French readers, the work has been translated into numerous interpretations.[13] The novel's first English edition, translated by an unknown hand and published in 1871 by the London house Griffith & Farran, appeared under the title A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and is now available at Project Gutenberg.[14] A drastically rewritten version of the story, it adds chapter titles where Verne gives none, meanwhile changing the professor's surname to Hardwigg, Axel's name to Harry, and Gräuben's to Gretchen. In addition, many paragraphs and details are completely recomposed.[citation needed]
An 1877 London edition from Ward, Lock, & Co. appeared under the title A Journey into the Interior of the Earth. Its translation, credited to Frederick Amadeus Malleson, is more faithful than the Griffith & Farran version, though it, too, concocts chapter titles and modifies details. Its text is likewise available at Project Gutenberg.[15] In 1877, Verne was sued by another author Léon Delmas alleging that Verne had plagarised parts of Journey from the Delmas 1863 short story 'La Tete de Mimers' also involving a lost runic document and exploration underground.[16] However, when it reached court, the allegations by Delmas were not proven and Verne won the court case.[16]
There are two modern English translations: one by Frank Wynne with notes by Peter Cogman, published by Penguin Classics in 2009, and one by Matthew Jonas, published by Birch Hill Publishing in 2022. A prior Penguin Classics edition was translated by Robert Baldick and published in 1965.
In 1993, NBC aired a made-for-TV film version with a cast including John Neville, F. Murray Abraham and Kim Miyori. The film used the title and general premise of Verne's novel, but had its heroes carry out the journey in an earth-penetrating machine borrowed from Burroughs.[18][19]
2008: Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 3-D film by Eric Brevig. Cast members include Brendan Fraser, Anita Briem, and Josh Hutcherson. The film is a modern-day paraphrase of the 1860s original — it uses Verne's book as its inciting incident instead of Saknussemm's message, then follows the novel's overall structure with fidelity: a geology professor, his nephew, and an Icelandic guide (now a woman named "Hannah") penetrate Snaefells, discover a seashore with giant mushrooms, sail across an underground ocean inhabited by a pod of Elasmosaurus, a relative of the plesiosaurus, and reach the other side where they encounter a terrestrial animal from prehistory, in this case a Giganotosaurus, a predatory theropod dinosaur rather than a mastodon. Ultimately the three explorers exit the heating underworld via an erupting volcano, find themselves in present-day Italy, and return to their starting point in academia.
2008: Journey to the Center of the Earth was a direct-to-DVD release by The Asylum, also released as Journey to Middle Earth in the United Kingdom. Starring Greg Evigan as Joseph Harnet and Dedee Pfeiffer as Emily Radford, it's a low-budget adaptation, which, as with most Asylum films, was apparently released to draft off of the Eric Brevig film.
The Wishbone 1996 episode "Hot Diggety Dawg" followed the novel and featured several major scenes identifying the central character as Professor Lidenbrock.
The 37th episode of The Triplets, called Journey to the Center of the Earth, makes reference to this novel.
The 2001 animated television series Ultimate Book of Spells references the novel, as the main protagonists are sent on adventures through the centre of the Earth with the titular object. It was originally planned to be named after the book in general, but was changed.[22]
The 2012 episode Journey to the Center of the Earth, from Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom, makes reference to the novel. In it, the naughty twins Daisy and Poppy magically send Mrs. Fotheringill to the center of the earth, and it's up to Grandpapa Thistle to guide Ben, Holly and their family there on a rescue mission.
Caedmon Records released a 1979 abridged recording of Journey to the Center of the Earth read by James Mason, in the 1960s.[26]
Alien Voices, an audio theater group led by Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie, released a dramatized version of Journey to the Center of the Earth through Simon and Schuster Audio in 1997.
A 90-minute radio adaptation by Stephen Walker directed by Owen O'Callan was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 28 December 1995, and rebroadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra on 20 November 2011, on 11 and 12 November 2012, and on 20 and 21 December 2014. Nicholas Le Prevost stars as Professor Otto Lidenbrock, Nathaniel Parker as Axel, and Oliver Senton as Hans. Kristen Millwood plays Rosemary McNab, a new character who funds and accompanies the expedition.[27]
In 2011, Audible released an unabridged "Signature Performance" reading of the book by Tim Curry.
A two-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Journey to the Centre of the Earth broadcast on 19 and 26 March 2017. Featuring Stephen Critchlow as Professor Lidenbrock, Joel MacCormack as Axel, and Gudmundur Ingi Thorvaldsson as Hans, it was directed and produced by Tracey Neale and adapted by Moya O'Shea.[28]
Wakeman released a second concept album called Return to the Centre of the Earth in 1999. It tells the story of a later set of travelers attempting to repeat the original journey.
Christopher Lloyd's character of Doctor Emmett Brown, one of the two main fictional characters of the Back to the Future film series, makes numerous references to the works of Jules Verne in general, and Journey to the Center of the Earth in particular.
The 1992 adventure/role-playing game Quest for Glory III by Sierra Entertainment used Arne Saknoosen the Aardvark as a bit character for exploration information, alluding to the explorer Arne Saknussemm.
The DC Comics comic book series Warlord takes place in Skartaris, a land supposed to exist within a Hollow Earth. Its creator Mike Grell has confirmed that "the name comes from the mountain peak Scartaris that points the way to the passage to the Earth's core in Journey to the Center of the Earth."[33]
Halldór Laxness, the only Icelandic author to be awarded the Nobel Prize, set his novel Under the Glacier in the area of Snæfellsjökull. The glacier has a mystic quality in the story and there are several references to A Journey to the Center of the Earth in connection with it.
Butcher, William (2006). Jules Verne. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN1-56025-854-3.
Debus, Allen (July 2007). "Re-Framing the Science in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth". Science Fiction Studies. 33 (3): 405–20. JSTOR4241461.
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