Journey to the Centre of the Earth (), also translated with the variant titles A Journey to the Center of the Earth and A Journey into the Interior of the Earth, is a classic science fiction novel written by French novelist Jules Verne. It was first published in French in 1864, then reissued in 1867 in a revised and expanded edition. Professor Otto Lidenbrock is the tale's central figure, an eccentric German scientist who decodes a message from a 16th century Icelandic alchemist who claims to have reached to the very center of the earth via volcanic tubes in the crater of the celebrated inactive Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull. Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel, and their Icelandic guide Hans rappel into the volcano, then contend with many dangers, including cave-ins, subpolar tornadoes, an underground ocean, and a variety of prehistoric life (the 1867 edition inserted additional prehistoric material). Eventually the three explorers are spewed back to the surface by the eruption of an active volcano, Stromboli, located in southern Italy.
The category of subterranean fiction existed well before Verne. However, his novel's distinction lay in its well-researched Victorian science and its inventive contribution to the science-fiction subgenre of time travel—Verne's innovation was the concept of a prehistoric realm still existing in the present-day world. Journey inspired many later authors, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his novel The Lost World, Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Pellucidar series, and J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit.
Plot The story begins in May 1863, at the home of Otto Lidenbrock, a professor of geology in Hamburg, Germany. While leafing through an original runic manuscript of an Icelandic saga, Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel find a coded note written in runic script along with the name of a 16th-century Icelandic alchemist, Arne Saknussemm. When translated into English, the note reads:
Lidenbrock departs for Iceland immediately, taking the reluctant Axel with him. After a swift trip via Kiel and Copenhagen, they arrive in Reykjavík. There they hire as their guide Icelander Hans Bjelke, a Danish-speaking eiderduck hunter, then travel overland to the base of Snæfellsjökull.
In late June they reach the volcano and set off into the bowels of the earth, encountering many dangers and strange phenomena. After taking a wrong turn, they run short of water and Axel nearly perishes, but Hans saves them all by tapping into a subterranean river, which shoots out a stream of water that Lidenbrock and Axel name the "Hansbach" in the guide's honor. During this descent, Axel once again comes close to death as he diverges from Lidenbrock and Hans and suffers major injuries finding his way back, however he manages to do so and is saved by them. Following the course of the Hansbach, the explorers descend many miles and reach an underground world lit by aurora borealis-like electric light, with forests consisting of giant mushrooms, tree ferns and trees including various modern trees like oak, as well as prehistoric ones like arborescent lycophytes (Sigillaria, Lepidodendron). The travelers then build a raft out of semipetrified wood and set sail over what turns out to be a vast underground sea. While at sea, they encounter prehistoric cephalaspid fish and giant marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs (a Plesiosaurus fighting an Ichthyosaurus). A lightning storm threatens to destroy the raft and its passengers, but instead throws them onto the site of an enormous fossil graveyard, including bones from various extinct creatures like Lophiodon, Anoplotherium, Megatherium, mastodon, Pliopithecus, the pterodactyl, and the preserved body of a man.
Lidenbrock and Axel venture into a forest featuring primitive vegetation from the Tertiary period. In its depths they are stunned to find a prehistoric humanoid more than twelve feet in height with a huge unshapely head mostly hidden by a mane of hair. It is watching over a herd of mastodons as a shepherd. Fearing the humanoid may be hostile, they leave the forest.
Continuing to explore the coastline, the travelers find a passageway marked by Saknussemm as the way ahead, but it has been blocked by a recent cave-in. The adventurers lay plans to blow the rock open with gun cotton, meanwhile paddling their raft out to sea to avoid the blast. On executing this scheme, they find a bottomless pit beyond the impeding rock and are swept into it as the sea rushes down the huge open gap. After spending hours descending at breakneck speed, their raft reverses direction and rises inside a volcanic chimney that ultimately spews them via an eruption into the open air. When they regain consciousness, they learn that they have been ejected from Stromboli, a volcanic island located off Sicily.
The trio returns to Germany, where they gain recognition; Professor Lidenbrock is hailed as a scientists of the day, Axel marries his sweetheart Gräuben, and Hans returns to his life in Iceland.
Main characters Professor Otto Lidenbrock: a German "professor of philosophy, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and many other ologies" at the Johanneum Gymnasium, described as an "old geologist, very gruff and unpleasant". Axel: Lidenbrock's nephew (Lidenbrock had married the sister of Axel's mother), a young student, affianced. Hans Bjelke: an Icelandic eiderduck hunter who is hired as their guide; resourceful and imperturbable, described as "stoical". Gräuben: Lidenbrock's goddaughter, with whom Axel is in love; from Vierlande (region southeast of Hamburg). Martha: Lidenbrock's housekeeper and cook.
Background and science In August 1859, Jules Verne visited Scotland, seeing Edinburgh, its castle and the local geological features, including the extinct volcano Arthur's Seat and Castle Rock, a volcanic plug. These would have an influence on his writing. Journey was written according to the mid-19th century scientific understandings of the time. For example, Lidenbrock’s premise for why the group do not encounter elevated temperatures even as they near the base of the Earth’s crust is based on Humphry Davy’s geochemistry (including the chemical oxidation theory of volcanic eruption) which was later disapproved. However, for an understanding of geology as well as other aspects of scientific information, Verne used Louis Figuier's then recently published 1863 scientific work La Terre avant le déluge (The World before the Deluge). Verne had also made friends with Charles Joseph Sainte-Claire Deville, a noted geologist who specialised in seismic phenomena and who had descended into Stromboli. Leonard Nimoy, in the Signet edition notes that Verne "was able to adapt nearly every important element in the story’s action from contemporary, intellectual, literary, scientific, and geographical thought". The source for the runic ciphered document of Arne Saknusseman that leads to the adventure was inspired by "The Gold-Bug" (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe and the runic description came from that in L'univers pittoresque (1845, Ambroise-Firmin Didot). The character Martha (Lidenbrock's housekeeper) was based on Mathurine Paris, a live-in maid who served the Verne household in Jules' early years. It is believed that Lidenbrock's character parodies that of Verne's father, Pierre, who was said to be multilingual, scientific and passionate. The name itself was said to have been in honour of Friedrich Lindenbrog (1573-1648), a German bibliophile. Between January and August 1864, combining these influences, Verne wrote Journey.
Publication and editions
The original manuscript of Journey is in a private collection in the US. The original French editions of 1864 and 1867 were issued by J. Hetzel et Cie, a major Paris publishing house owned by Pierre-Jules Hetzel. The 1867 edition, originally in a large-octavo format, came out with two new chapters. This included additional information on prehistory which had become a distinct focus of academic study in 1865. This included discussion of remains from the Quaternary Era, a living herd of mastodons, and other fictionalised prehistoric events.
For non-French readers, the work has been translated into numerous interpretations. The novel's first English edition, translated by an unknown hand and published in 1871 by the London house Griffith & Farran, appeared under the title A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and is now available at Project Gutenberg. A drastically rewritten version of the story, it adds chapter titles where Verne gives none, meanwhile changing the professor's surname to Hardwigg, Axel's name to Harry, and Gräuben's to Gretchen. In addition, many paragraphs and details are completely recomposed.
An 1877 London edition from Ward, Lock, & Co. appeared under the title A Journey into the Interior of the Earth. Its translation, credited to Frederick Amadeus Malleson, is more faithful than the Griffith & Farran version, though it, too, concocts chapter titles and modifies details. Its text is likewise available at Project Gutenberg. In 1877, Verne was sued by another author Léon Delmas alleging that Verne had plagiarised parts of Journey from the Delmas 1863 short story "La Tete de Mimers" also involving a lost runic document and exploration underground. However, when it reached court, the allegations by Delmas were not proven and Verne won the court case.
There are two modern English translations: one by Frank Wynne with notes by Peter Cogman, published by Penguin Classics in 2009, and one by Matthew Jonas, published by Birch Hill Publishing in 2022. A prior Penguin Classics edition was translated by Robert Baldick and published in 1965. A translation by Willis T Bradley, was published in the USA by Ace Books as D-155 (D-397, 2nd printing) in 1956 (1959), that claimed to be the "first new Twentieth Century translation". An Oxford World Classics paperback edition was translated by William Butcher and published in 1992.
Adaptations Film 1959: Journey to the Center of the Earth, USA, directed by Henry Levin, starring James Mason and Pat Boone, distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film transfers Verne's beginning locale from Hamburg to Edinburgh, "Professor Otto Lidenbrock" becomes "Professor Oliver Lindenbrook", and Axel becomes earth-sciences student Alec McEwan. The film also introduces a new subplot and two additional main characters: a female explorer (Arlene Dahl) and a villainous antagonist (Thayer David). 1978: Viaje al centro de la Tierra, Spain, directed by Juan Piquer Simón, starring Kenneth More and . It was distributed in both the U.S. in theaters as Where Time Began and the U.K. on TV as The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth. 2008: Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 3-D film by Eric Brevig. Cast members include Brendan Fraser, Anita Briem, and Josh Hutcherson. The film is a modern-day paraphrase of the 1860s original — it uses Verne's book as its inciting incident instead of Saknussemm's message, then follows the novel's overall structure with fidelity: a geology professor, his nephew, and an Icelandic guide (now a woman named "Hannah") penetrate Snaefells, discover a seashore with giant mushrooms, sail across an underground ocean inhabited by a pod of Elasmosaurus, a relative of the plesiosaurus, and reach the other side where they encounter a terrestrial animal from prehistory, in this case a Tyrannosaurus, a predatory theropod dinosaur rather than a mastodon. Ultimately the three explorers exit the heating underworld via an erupting volcano, find themselves in present-day Italy, and return to their starting point in academia.
Television An animated television series, Journey to the Center of the Earth, first broadcast in 1967 on ABC, starring the voices of Ted Knight, Pat Harrington, Jr., and Jane Webb; loosely based on Verne's novel and closer to the 1959 film.