JULES VERNE

20,000 Leagues under the Seas

Translated and Edited by William Butcher

Oxford University Press, 1998

£4.99/$9.95 0-19-282839-8

The enigmatic Captain Nemo and his Nautilus submarine have entered modern mythology as universal archetypes.

But Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas has usually been truncated or travestied in English. William Butcher’s faithful but stylish new translation, published by Oxford World Classics, settles the score once and for all.

This volume will be of exceptional interest since:

the exploration of the underwater marvels, the ruins of Atlantis and the South Pole is in turn dramatic, diverting and breathtaking
the introduction is the first to analyse the novel in literary terms
an undiscovered science-fiction manuscript, Paris in the 20th Century, has recently drawn worldwide attention to Verne
this volume corrects the large number of errors in the previous editions, whether French or English
this edition is the first to study the correspondence and the manuscripts, and reveals amazing discoveries:
- the sexual drive underlying the book
- the source for the Nautilus, astonishingly in a little-known Scottish château
- a different Nemo: brutal, un-Christian, anti-Russian and generally more untamed
- the location of Nemo’s secret home-base and lost episodes set in the English Channnel and on the French coast.

This critical edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues will magisterially instruct and most royally entertain.

Dr William Butcher, previously Head of Languages at Hong Kong Technical Colleges, is the father of Verne studies in English. He has also published Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1992) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1995) for OUP.

Read the first half of the Introduction
Read the first chapter: A Shifting Reef
Read the second chapter: Pros and Cons
Read the third chapter: As Monsieur Pleases

“By far the best translations/critical editions available” Science-Fiction Studies

“A leading specialist. Dr Butcher has done the reader a great favour” South China Morning Post

“This new and unabridged translation brilliantly conveys the novel’s tones and ranges” Tandem—Franco-British Arts Review

Daily Telegraph, 14 March 1998

Old Favourite

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas by Jules Verne; tr. by William Butcher (Oxford, £4.99)

In 1866, Dr Aronnax, a French naturalist, joins an expedition to hunt a sea monster; but instead finds himself aboard a huge, high-tech submarine run by the enigmatic Captain Nemo, who tells him he will never escape. In precise, scholarly tones, which accentuate the wonders he retails, Aronnax describes hunting amid the ruins of Atlantis, planting a flag at the South Pole, and his discovery of Nemo’s sinister agenda. Contrary to popular belief, Jules Verne was writing for adults, and I enjoyed the novel very much.

For more information, contact: wbutchernetvigator.com