Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas

by Jules Verne

  254 McClintock, the hero of the polar seas: (Verne: ‘Mac Clintock’), Leopold, author of The Voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic Seas (1859), who describes the discovery of a cairn proving that John Franklin had died in 1847. The Bull-Dog of the following sentence dived in 1855.

  255 below three leagues: the submarine had previously been at a depth of ‘three and a quarter leagues’.

  257 Baleen and Sperm Whales: in the first manuscript, the title is ‘Scies et baleines’ (Sawfish and Whales). Certainly a fight of these two species might seem more dramatic; however, the text of the draft chapter does not contain such a combat. Both words in French have two meanings; Verne may be making a play on words.

  261 Sinbad the Sailor: in The Thousand and One Nights, he makes seven voyages, encounters sea monsters and the Old Man of the Sea, and is carried aloft by a giant roc; the episode in 20T echoes the 538th and 539th nights.

  50 tons: this should logically be ‘500 tons’; ‘October’ below is also a slip.

  262 the Essex sank almost immediately: the attack and sinking of the Essex are related in Moby-Dick, similarly forming a prelude to the climax, although Verne describes a ‘(baleen) whale’ and Melville, a sperm whale. Melville’s cited source is Narrative . . . of the Whale-Ship ‘Essex’ (1821) by Owen Chase, the first mate, whose account of the incident in 1820 has the sperm whale stopping the ship dead, rather than pushing it backwards, as in Verne.

  263 enough problems with their natural enemies: if Verne himself is opposed to hunting, 20T is often ambivalent. The danger of extinction of the sea otter, dugong, and manatee, as well as Ned Land’s excesses, are emphasized; but the extermination of the sperm whale seems to be advocated.

  Ned whistled Yankee Doodle between his teeth: From the Earth to the Moon calls ‘Yankee Doodle’ the American ‘national song’ and compares it to the Revolutionary ‘La Marseillaise’. Ned’s subtext is apparently anti-colonial and anti-upper class.

  264 twenty-five huge teeth: inaccurate quotation, since Frédol writes of 20 to 25 teeth on each side of the lower jaw (p. 547); one would expect an even number of teeth. The same author, cited a few lines lower, is named Moquin-Tandon in I 24.

  267 pack-ice . . . ‘streams’ when they are longer: (Verne: ‘palchs’), the OED quotes an 1850 source: ‘If the field is broken up into a number of pieces . . . the whole is called a pack, if the pieces are broad they are called a patch; and when long and narrow a stream.’

  268 55th meridian: at the beginning of the chapter the Nautilus was following the ‘50th meridian’.

  269 73.5 degrees: a slip for ‘centimetres’. The idea of the low barometer reading in the Antarctic is present in Maury.

  Hansteen: (Verne: ‘Hansten’), Christopher (1784–1873), Norwegian astronomer, researcher in terrestrial magnetism, and author.

  18 March: should this not be the 17th?

  271 I can do what I wish with the Nautilus: MS2 has ‘I do what I say’, revealing Nemo’s self-image.

  272 child’s play for the Nautilus: MS2 has ‘child’s play for Nautilus’, as if it were an animate being.

  four to one: (MS2: ‘one to four’), neither this ratio, nor Nemo’s three to one, nor consequently the rest of the following paragraph, are accurate in the 1871 edition. The ratio is now believed to be six or eight to one, depending on the salinity of the water and of the ice. However, some of these figures are correct in the 1869 edition.

  274 Two degrees already gained: in fact one. Nor does a water temperature of −12° seem plausible.

  19 March: in fact the 18th.

  275 900 metres . . . the surface of the ocean: another evident slip, like that of the previous paragraph. If one accepts Nemo’s three to one, these figures are correct in the 18mo editions, again implying they postdate the 1871 edition.

  277 he seemed to take possession of the southern regions: MS2: ‘he appeared as the spirit of the southern regions’.

  James Ross: James (Clark) Ross (1800–62), explorer and admiral. He helped locate the North Magnetic Pole in 1831, and discovered the Ross Sea and Victoria Land (1839–43). The information in this paragraph is identical in Maury (sec. 468), who says however that Mount Terror is extinct.

  279 The following day, 20 March: this should be the 21st.

  280 not be able to surpass . . . tritons: MS2 has the more misogynist ‘. . . to equal’. Walruses are not found in the Antarctic (nor are the seals of this chapter). Triton, son of Poseidon, is a minor Greek deity, with a human face and a fish tail; a triton is the male equivalent of a siren.

  cetaceans: seals are no longer classified as cetaceans.

  283 less than 100 metres: in reality of the order of a kilometre.

  China: it was possibly near this point in the text that Hetzel made one of his more catastrophic suggestions/instructions, in line with his wish to make Verne’s books more commercial: ‘Sunday—3 a.m. . . . save some little Chinese kidnapped by Chinese pirates. They are not dangerous. They are funny, they are to be taken home in the dinghy. They are completely taken in [sic]. Nemo cannot worry about them [sic]. One could be kept on board. No one understands him, he understands no one. He would cheer the Nautilus up. But that is your business’ (25 April 1869).

  284 southwards: south and north become increasingly arbitrary as the Pole is approached.

  285 chronometer: in the margin of MS1 Verne wonders: ‘Can one observe under these conditions?’

  the Dutchman Gherritz: or Gerritsz (Verne: ‘Ghéritk’), Dirck or Derk, navigator. He was swept southwards from South America in a storm, in fact in 1599, and discovered high snow-covered mountains, now thought to be the South Shetlands. Verne’s ‘semi-structured’ list of the successive latitudes reached by the Antarctic explorers is an echo of his hero, Captain Hatteras, whose only thought is the distance from the North Pole, an obsession which will lead to his madness and death. A compass-direction fixation is also visible in Journey to England and Scotland, where the focus of Verne’s dreams is the Highlands, and the northwards urge a leitmotiv in every chapter.

  286 Bransfield . . . Balleny: explorers. Bransfield: (Verne: ‘Brunsfield’), Lieutenant Edward (c.1795–1852). He and Bellingshausen are generally thought to have been the first to have sighted the Antarctic mainland. However, recent cartographic studies have shown that the continent may have been known about as early as the sixteenth century; Morrell: (Verne: ‘Morrel’), Captain Benjamin (1795–1835), author of A Narrative of Four Voyages . . . to the South Seas . . . and Antarctic Ocean (1832). He was not in fact in the Antarctic in 1820; Powell: George (1794–1824), a sealer and captain of three expeditions, in fact 1818–22, he co-discovered the South Orkneys; Weddell: (Verne: ‘Weddel’), James (1787–1834), who discovered the Weddell Sea, in fact in 1823; Foster, commanding the ‘Chanticleer’: (Verne: ‘Forster’), Henry (1796–1831), author of Voyage to the Southern Atlantic Ocean (1834); Biscoe: (Verne: ‘Biscoë’), John (1794–1843), RN, discovered Enderby Land and the Biscoe Islands (1830–2); Wilkes: (in fact American), Lieutenant Charles (1798–1877), led the six-ship Exploration Expedition (1838–42) and discovered Wilkes Land; Balleny: John (c.1790–1857), whaling captain, discovered the Balleny Islands. Verne’s ‘76° 56´’ in the following sentence has been amended to ‘70° 56´’.

  a black flag, carrying a golden ‘N’ quartered on its bunting: possibly an allusion to Napoleon, whose N adorns French buildings and bridges. The black flag is traditionally a pirate flag; and black is also the colour of anarchists. The black on the white ice may in addition be a textual metaphor. But much of the power of the image derives from the sun’s golden rays before the black six-month night.

  my new realm: a footnote to Verne’s The Sphinx of the Ice Realm (1897) reads: ‘someone had already set foot on this point of the globe, on 21 March 1868’ (II 10). The authorial voice summarizes the Antarctic scene and the approach by ‘that mysterious character’, before concluding: ‘And at the moment that the horizon, just to the north, cut the solar disc into two equal
parts, he took possession of the continent in his own name, and unfurled a flag of bunting embroidered with a golden N. Offshore floated a submarine boat called the Nautilus, the name of whose commander was Captain Nemo. J. V.’

  288 ‘But where can we find him?’ asked Ned: Ned and Conseil do not know their way round the library or dining-room (they eat in their cabin).

  299 That day, the sixth of our imprisonment: 25 March is not noted; 26 March is the fifth day; 27 March is spent on work. Since a night comes before ‘That day’, it must in fact be the seventh day, the 28th, a date confirmed a page below.

  304 John Davis: (c.1550–1605), discovered the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay.

  Richard Hawkins: (1562–1622), admiral who defeated the Invincible Armada (1588) and commanded an expedition to South America (1583–97), where he was imprisoned by the Spanish.

  305 the easternmost point of South America, Cape São Roque: although Cape São Roque is the point closest to Africa, it is not the furthest east.

  305 the Guyanas, a French possession: French Guyana in fact coexisted with British and Dutch Guyana, as Verne recognizes a page later when he writes of ‘the Dutch coast near the mouth of the Maroni’.

  308 at least 4,000 kilograms: in reality the maximum size of the manatee is about 5 metres and 700 kilograms.

  Toussenel: Alphonse (1803–85), author of L’Esprit des bêtes: Le Monde des oiseaux (1847, reprinted many times) and L’Esprit des bêtes: Mammifères de France, with a preface by P.-J. Stahl (pseudonym of Hetzel—Hetzel, 1868).

  311 Diana: the virgin goddess of hunting and childbirth, associated with the moon.

  313 a painting of the said squid: the church referred to is St Thomas’s Chapel; and the painting is an ex-voto from sailors grateful for surviving the incident described in Montfort’s Histoire naturelle (see note to p. 318).

  and you know what use legends are in natural history: MS2 has ‘ex-votos’ instead of ‘legends’: anticlerical and showing the connection with St Thomas’s Chapel and Montfort.

  but a certain Olaus Magnus speaks of a mile-long cephalopod: (Verne: ‘Olaüs Magnus’) (1490–1557), Swedish scholar and archbishop of Uppsala, an expert on runes and author of a work translated as Histoire des pays septentrionaux (1560, 1561).

  one day the Bishop of Nidaros . . . returned to the sea: (Verne: ‘Nidros’), Eric Falkendorff, archbishop of Nidaros (now Trondheim), who wrote a letter to Pope Leo X about the mass in question.

  314 Captain Paul Bos of Le Havre: in May 1868 Verne acquired a boat, the St Michel, built by ‘one of my friends, one of the best captains of Le Havre’ [June? 1868, to his father], Charles-Paul Bos (1826–83). Le Crotoy native Bos, who often stayed there with his brother, a few paces from Verne’s residence, was a former naval officer. He was responsible for the novelist’s navigation accounts, duly recorded in his logbooks.

  Captain Bouyer: (Verne: ‘Bouguer’), Frédéric (1822–82), author of La Guyane française (1867), with engravings by Riou, one of the illustrators of 20T. A letter to the Figaro of 21 August 1871 indicated Verne’s misspelling, which was not however corrected in subsequent reprints. The incident Aronnax relates, on 30 November 1861, was attested in a letter written to the French Academy of Sciences by Sabin Berthelot, French consul at Tenerife. The story was much criticized, including the impracticability of trying to haul a two-ton mass on board using a single rope, the strange behaviour of the creature in swimming under the boat and remaining on the scene for two or three hours, and the general lack of information about the tail, which apparently weighed 40 pounds.

  315 20 to 25 tons: this seems a lot for an eight-metre squid, although Verne may be indicating the length of the body without the tentacles. The Furies mentioned a few lines above were terrifying winged goddesses with serpentine hair.

  317 a spurt of blackish liquid, secreted from a bursa in its abdomen: the symbolism of this battle scene includes the ‘black ink’ and the ‘quill’ of the struggle of writing.

  318 with it my unfortunate compatriot: the musk smell and dark liquid are visible in descriptions going back to Pontoppidan and Pliny. But this scene resembles what a Captain Jean Magnus Dens told Pierre Denys (de) Montfort (director of the Natural History Museum, but later convicted of forgery). Montfort’s Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des mollusques (1802–5) states that ‘poulpes’ can sink ships, and reports that Dens’s men were scraping their ship between St Helena and Nova Scotia, when a huge animal rose from the water and threw a giant tentacle round two of them. Another arm seized a third man, who shouted for help. Several harpoons were driven into the monster, and the crew cut off one arm, 25 feet long, with axes and knives, but to little effect, and the animal carried off the two sailors. The third man died the following night.

  red: MS2 has ‘red and black’, probably an allusion to Stendhal’s novel, but also a conjunction of blood and ink.

  the author of The Toilers of the Sea: Hugo’s novel (1866), which Verne mentions in a letter, depicts a battle with an octopus (‘pieuvre’) (vol. 2, book 4, chs. 1–3). Despite similarities with Verne, such as the colour change, there are also considerable differences: Hugo emphasizes the tough skin, the phosphorescence when mating, the fact that the mouth and the anus are combined, and so on. Verne’s squid has ‘eight arms, or legs’ (like an octopus), whereas squid are often said to have ten; nevertheless two of these are tentacles, of distinct form and function.

  319 I did not see him for some time: in the first manuscript Nemo disappears for more than a week; given that the bedrooms are side by side, Aronnax should see or hear him from time to time. Might he have a hideaway on the upper gangway? Or does he sometimes leave the Nautilus?

  320 the open sea of the Pole: the information in this paragraph is taken from Maury. Verne quotes two different speeds for the Gulf Stream, perhaps due to a confusion between miles and kilometres.

  321 fish . . . dedicated to his good lady wife: the ‘mugilomore Anne-Caroline’.

  323 in a small floating container: MS2 has ‘bottle cask’ (its final chapter also has ‘bottle’); although where such an object came from is unclear. The idea that Nemo will include his name and the story of his life is added in the margin.

  at this moment: instead of this phrase, MS2 has ‘I shut the thoughts up inside me’; in the next paragraph, it has ‘risky’ in place of ‘crude’.

  325 a second time: the six paragraphs ending here were added in the margin of MS2, replacing a crossed-out passage: ‘ “But finally, by what right are you holding us?” | “By the right that I accord myself,” the captain said firmly. “I have already given you my reasons, and am very surprised to see you returning to the subject.” . . . “But we have the right to regain our freedom by any means.” | “Regain it. I have not asked for your word that you will never leave the vessel without my authorization.” | “We would not have given it to you, sir!” | Captain Nemo looked at me, his arms proudly crossed. | “May this first time that you have raised the subject”, he said, “be also be the last.” ’ Behaviour between nineteenth-century gentlemen demanded that one kept one’s word and maintained some level of courtesy ( just as men-of-war gave warning before attacking). The MS2 dialogue is more forthright concerning the limits of what either side can do. But the 1871 version adds Aronnax’s important assessment of Nemo, of their position on board, of his own obscure hopes of a perhaps posthumous fame, and of his incomprehension of the captain’s life, almost in terms a quarrelling couple might use. His arguments in this published text are essentially subjective, amounting to an appeal for mercy. Nemo easily crushes Aronnax by referring to his absolute power and saying that it was not he who got them into this situation. His only concession is the flattery he uses of his interlocutor’s ability to ‘understand anything’.

  325 18 May: a slip; it must be about 8 or 9 May.

  326 1854: Verne: ‘1864’.

  328 the Solway . . . City of Glasgow: ships lost at sea; the ‘Solway’: (constructed 1841), 20 miles w
est of Corunna, 7 April 1843, 35 lives lost; the ‘Isis’: (1842), off Bermuda, 8 October 1842, no lives lost; the ‘Hungarian’: Sable Island, 20 February 1860, 237 dead; the ‘Canadian’: Belle Isle Strait, 4 June 1861, 35 dead; the ‘Anglo-Saxon’: (1856), near Cape Henry, 27 April 1863, 238 dead; the ‘United States’: Bird Rocks, Gulf of St Lawrence, 25 April 1861, all lives lost; the ‘President’: last seen on 11 March 1841, with 136 people on board; the ‘City of Glasgow’: (1850), sailed for Delaware on 1 March 1854, not seen again.

  330 which makes a total of 25 million: in fact 200 million. (Five lines lower, ‘four cod’ should similarly read ‘three’.)

  331 Cyrus Field: Cyrus (West) Field (1819–92), American merchant and financier. The first transatlantic cable of 1858 failed after three weeks, but the 1866 one was successful. Verne met Field on board the Great Eastern on 18 or 19 March 1867, and attended one of his presentations on the laying of the cable; on 4 April, he gave the novelist a meticulous personal visit of the ship. The first manuscript contains several additional lines about the route of the cable and Field’s failures, as well as the expense of sending telegrams. It also implies that Nemo knows the story of the cable, successfully laid only after his embarkation on the Nautilus.

  Captain Anderson: ch. 3 of A Floating City presents a flattering portrait of this real-life personage, who was captain of the Great Eastern on Verne’s own crossings.

  the armistice between Prussia and Austria after Sadowa: village in northern Czechoslovakia, site of a Prussian victory in the Seven Weeks War (1866).

  ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men’: Luke 2: 14. In fact Field sent the telegram on 7 August 1858, the first part being: ‘Europe and America are united by telegraph’.

  332 Cape Clear and Fastnet lighthouse: after a port call in Cork on the Great Eastern, Verne saw Cape Clear and Fastnet towards the end of March 1867.