0100,0100,0100Garmt doubts whether anyone could read the entire Verne's "Géographie" without falling asleep. Before complaining too much about the aridity of the work I think it is important to remember the context of its publication. 1. The work was commenced by Théophile Lavallée who wrote the general section and on his death Verne was commissioned to write the sections on each département. To some extent therefore, the nature of the work had been determined before Verne became involved. 2. More importantly, Verne was following the method and status of geography in the mid-nineteenth century in France. In the national curriculum geography was linked with history and teachers were trained to teach both subjects but most often were more interested and competent in history than geography , which often, and until quite recently, was poorly taught.This was especially true of the scientific aspects of geography. It was often seen as subsidiary to history with relevance as a background to historic events rather than a discipline in its own right. It was not until Paul Vidal de la Blache, towards the end of the nineteenth century, Professor of Geography at the Ecole Normale and then the Sorbonne, developed a form of geography stressing man's dynamic relationship to the environment that geography became an intellectual discipline in its own right and broke away from a descriptive and inventory approach.Even the distinguished Paganel, in Les Enfants du Capitaine Grant, is an armchair geographer, full of esoteric book knowledge. To that extent therefore Verne was following the paradigm of the time in his approach in "La Géographie". Conversely, his novels gave him the chance to break away from fossilised fact and even though much of his geography remains descriptive, its imbrication within a plot brings it to life. Moreover, publication in serial form in magazines made his work accessible to youth at a time when competition from other media forms hardly existed and thus helped to pupularise geography. In short, "La Géographie" responded to the didactic needs of the time and was not intended as literature. However, his mastery of geographical fact and processes gave Verne a solid base on which to weave his adventures and justifies his claim to be the inventor (in France at least) of the "geographical novel" Ian Thompson.