
The expedition leaves Brooklyn aboard the United States Navy frigate Abraham Lincoln, then travels south around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean. Canadian whaler and master harpooner Ned Land and Aronnax's faithful manservant Conseil are also among the participants. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist and the story's narrator, is in town at the time and receives a last-minute invitation to join the expedition he accepts. government assembles an expedition in New York City to find and destroy the monster. Captain Nemo – the designer and captain of the Nautilusĭuring the year 1866, ships of various nationalities sight a mysterious sea monster, which, it is later suggested, might be a gigantic narwhal.Ned Land – a Canadian harpooner, described as having "no equal in his dangerous trade".

Conseil – Aronnax's servant, very devoted to him and knowledgeable in biological classification.Professor Pierre Aronnax – the narrator of the story, a French natural scientist.The book employs metric leagues, which are four kilometers each. This distinction becomes clearer when the book's French title is correctly translated: rendered literally, it should read "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas" (not "Sea"). The title refers to the distance traveled under the various seas and not to any depth attained, since 20,000 leagues (80,000 km) is nearly twice the circumference of the Earth the greatest depth reached in the novel is four leagues (16 kilometers or 52,493 feet, over three miles deeper than the ocean's actual maximum depth). Its depiction of Captain Nemo's underwater ship, the Nautilus, is regarded as ahead of its time, since it accurately describes many features of today's submarines, which in the 1860s were comparatively primitive vessels.Ī model of the French submarine Plongeur (launched in 1863) figured at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, where Jules Verne examined it and was inspired by it when penning his novel.

The book was widely acclaimed on its release and remains so it is regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

A deluxe octavo edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's fortnightly periodical, the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A World Tour Underwater ( French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.
