and the Verne family showed such jealous discretion that important episodes in his life are still veiled in shadow. The standard biography, Jules Verne: Sa Vie et son oeuvre (Paris 1928), by Mme.

Many critics agree that Verne's dystopian "Paris in the Twentieth Century" wasn't his greatest work, but what makes it most interesting are the inventions he predicted almost 100 years before they ...