Jules Verne Forum

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Who is familiar with this (apparent) JV hoax from the '50s?

From: thomas mccormick <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 03:00:37 +0000
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

Dear Verne readers,

Sometime during the 1950's or very early '60's (and I'm sorry I can't be
more specific), there appeared in This Week Magazine what purported to be a
translation of a newly discovered MS. of a
long-lost story by Jules Verne. (This Week was a magazine-format
publication, syndicated in the Sunday edition of many daily newspapers in
the U.S.)

The story was presented as Verne's prediction of the twentieth century. The
protagonist travels from Paris to Universal City, capital of "the United
States of the Two Americas", via a subterranean transatlantic train tunnel.
He then communicates with his wife in Paris, using what I recall (maybe
wrongly) as a telephone. The state of the world is described in dialogue
between the minor characters; the only line I recall is "The Chinese Emperor
must impose birth control on his subjects."

Since I never heard anything more about this piece, I'm quite certain it was
soon determined to be a hoax, yet the hoax was exposed only after it had
appeared in a fairly wide-ranging publication. I remain curious as to who
else on this list recalls it, whether it has come up in anyone's research,
and if any details are forthcoming.

Tom McCormick

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Received on Thu 05 Oct 2006 - 05:00:52 IST

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