Audiobook · read by volunteers
À Journey to the Interior of the Earth
Jules Verne (1828–1905)
Read by Vinny Bove, Mark Bradford, Hugh McGuire, Kristin LeMoine, Mur Lafferty, Paul S. Jenkins, Alex Foster, Kristen McQuillin, Michael Crowl, Brad Bush · 41 chapters · 8 h 10
About the book
Professor Lidenbrock is a hot-tempered scholar who loves old manuscripts. When a scrap of runic writing falls out of a book, he deciphers it and finds directions for a descent into the heart of the planet, starting from a volcano in Iceland. His nephew Axel would rather stay at home, but the professor is not a man to be argued with, and soon the two, accompanied by a calm and capable local guide, are climbing down into the dark. What follows is a journey through caverns, underground seas and landscapes no human eye has seen, with ancient creatures, storms and perils at every turn. Jules Verne mixes scientific curiosity with a sense of wonder and a good deal of humour. It is a thrilling, imaginative adventure in 41 short chapters, a little over eight hours in all, with the pace of an expedition.
Introduction
Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French writer who made a career of combining adventure with the science and technology of his day. Journey to the Interior of the Earth, first published in French in 1864 as Voyage au centre de la Terre, is one of the earliest and best-loved novels in the long series he called the Voyages Extraordinaires. Verne’s chapters are short and propulsive, and his characters are drawn with humour: the impatient professor, the doubtful nephew and the calm guide make an excellent trio for a long journey. The tale also gives a lively sense of how nineteenth-century readers pictured the unknown, at a time when geology was still a young science.
The story follows a professor, his nephew and a hired guide as they descend a volcano in Iceland toward the so-called centre of the Earth. Along the way they meet prehistoric animals and natural hazards, and they eventually return to the surface in southern Italy. Verne drew on the geology and palaeontology of his time, and he wrote with infectious enthusiasm for discovery, even when the science was speculative. The narrator, Axel, supplies much of the book’s humour and its anxiety, which makes the wonder more believable. The novel has often been classed with the foundations of science fiction. It has inspired films, comics and games, but its original text remains the best way into its mixture of bluster, fear and delight.
This recording has 41 short chapters, some grouped in the track list, and lasts about eight hours and a quarter. A team of LibriVox volunteers shares the reading.
It is still a wonderful listen: fast, funny and full of the pleasure of going somewhere nobody has gone before.
Public domain
Jules Verne died in 1905: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text