Journey to the Center of the Earth

Originally published in 1864, this classic remains popular today for readers of all ages! Jules Verne’s classic science fiction novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth, takes readers deep below the world’s surface and inside the author’s inventive, visionary mind. The story revolves around Professor Otto Lidenbrock, an eccentric German scientist who decodes the cryptic notes of a famous medieval scholar, discovering a map which describes a method to access a tunnel leading directly to the earth’s core. The adventurous geology professor can’t resist the opportunity to investigate, and persuades his sixteen-year-old nephew Axel to travel with him on the most remarkable human quest ever taken. Epitomizing the subterranean fiction genre, one of the best storytellers who ever lived, Verne takes readers on an incredible journey through a prehistoric world incorporating well-researched Victorian science with some of literature’s most unforgettable characters. They set off across Iceland with Hans Bjelke, a native Icelandic guide and descend into Snæfellsjökull, Iceland's famous dormant volcano. As they travel down into the unexplored, subterranean world beneath their feet, they discover that there is more to life than what is on the surface of the earth as they contend with many unexpected dangers. After facing cave-ins, subpolar tornadoes, prehistoric creatures, a vast subterranean ocean, and a living past that holds the secrets to the origins of human existence, they are eventually shot back to the surface by Stromboli, an active Italian volcano. JULES VERNE (1828 –1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His adventure novels include Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days.