by Sarah Murray

Created on: January 27, 2009

Jules Verne and H.G. Wells have often been described as the founding fathers of SF, setting the patterns and establishing a tradition of SF. Both were authors of the so-called scientific romance' that at its simplest consists in the use of scientific (or, more often, quasi-scientific) elements in highly-coloured romantic fiction. Examples of scientific romances include Nathaniel Hawthorne's tales (The Birthmark' [1843] and Rappaccini's Daughter [1844]) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The form underwent systematic developments with the work of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, whose achievement above all that of Wells was to free science fiction from its initial dependence on the romantic form.

While both authors were writing scientific romances in the second half of the nineteenth century (with Verne being Wells' elder of 38 years), their work has often been compared and contrasted, with Verne being described as the last happy utopianist' and Wells as the writer of logical speculation'.

Verne created a specific early and basic variant of SF and he gained a permanent popularity for the genre among a mass readership, mainly but not exclusively juvenile. As the overall title of his shelf-full of novels Extraordinary Voyages: Known and Unknown Worlds indicates, he refurbished the oldest tradition of SF, that of the marvellous voyages, of tribal legends, antiquity and the Middle Ages, for new purposes in the age of industrial adventure. Verne wrote over eighty novels and although he reached the peak of his carer in the 1870s, there are only a few of his later works that are decidedly uninteresting. Among the most famous of his novels are Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and Around the World in 80 Days (1873).

Verne's work captured the essence of the nineteenth century, its optimistic spirit, its belief in the bright new vistas opened by science and technology; and it proved that science could be the proper material for fiction. He set his face against irresponsible' scientific speculation and confined himself, for the most part, to short-range extrapolations from existing knowledge and existing technology. It is significant that Verne, often referred to as the prophet of future gadgetry, did not in fact write any anticipations. His works are ostensibly factual, newspaper-style reports about parallel universes and alternate time-tracks. These reports are neither Swiftian open satirical conspiracy

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