Who Killed Jules Verne?

For as famous as Jules Verne’s works are in modern culture, not much emphasis is placed on his personal history, but instead on his incredibly vibrant works of fiction and the strange characters that he created. However, as we all know, truth is often stranger than fiction. Jules Verne came from a humble background and rose to great literary prominence. But after a series of tragic occurrences, the fairytale was crushed and the heartbreak took over.

On February 8, 1828, Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France. From the family’s summer house, Jules could look out and see the docks and shipbuilding facilities. He often spoke of growing up in the “center of maritime life”, as he watched the great ships come and go. When he was old enough, Jules was sent to Paris to study law. In-between studies, he fell in love with the theater. After a while, his friend Alexandre Dumas - the author of The Three Musketeers - encouraged Verne to try penning a play. He was a playwright for ten years, but was never really successful. He became a stockbroker during those years to sustain a marriage to a widow named Honorine in 1857. In 1861, the couple had their only child, Michel Jean Pierre Verne.

One year after his baby was born, Jules Verne set out to write “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” a daring new novel that propelled his name into the public sector. From there, he went on to write many other successful books, including “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” These books would be followed by “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “Around the World In Eighty Days,” and countless other classics. It seemed as if Jules Verne life would now be an easy one. He was a successful author who sold many books, and had a happy household. Life couldn’t be better.

But that was all about to change.

On March 9, 1886, Verne’s nephew, Gaston, went up to the famous author, who was just coming from his club in his home in Amiens, when suddenly Gaston pulled out a gun and fired two shots at his uncle. One bullet missed, the other entered his left leg. The wound was slow to heal and left him limping for life. No one quite knows why Gaston shot Jules Verne, but it may have been part of a mental imbalance that he suffered from. Gaston spent the rest of his life in an asylum.

Not too long after the shooting, Verne’s longtime friend and publisher Peirre Hetzel died. Verne was devastated. It was transcribed that no one ever saw Jules as distraught as when he was told of Hetzel’s death. After Hetzel’s death, Vernes books took on a much darker, more prophetic tone. In “The Begum’s Fortune,” Verne warned that technology and scientific knowledge in the hands of evil people can lead to vast destruction. In other books, he lamented the destruction of native cultures, and predicted a shortage in whale populations.

Jules Verne died on March 24, 1905, having written over 70 books.

So the question to ask isn’t who killed Jules Verne, it’s what. From the betrayal of Gaston to the death of Hetzel, it’s quite clear that grief and sorrow played contributed to the sudden shift in Verne’s works, and more importantly, his life. Now, don’t get the wrong idea; Jules Verne died of natural causes. But the year of 1886 was, without question, one of the most pivotal years in the author’s life. He grew up watching sailboats, rose to national prominence, and then experienced betrayal, death, and mourning. We like to think of Jules Verne as this terrific cultural icon, a man who unwittingly predicted many historical events. But we don’t often think of the man who was shot in the leg and crippled, and then lost a friend and gained a crippled heart.

After seeing his darker, more apocalyptic writings after 1886, it is perhaps ironic then what he wrote in Journey to the Center of the Earth: “As long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life.”