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147-682: The word Vril comes from the novel The Coming Race published in 1871 by the English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) and was probably derived from the Latin word virilis ( manly', 'powerful'). In this novel, the narrator encounters a subterranean race of humans, the Vril-Ya, who possess a psychic vital energy called Vril that is far superior to that of the human race. The Vril powers enable them to use telepathy and telekinesis and allow them to influence any form of animate or inanimate matter to heal, raise

294-423: A Roman Catholic , Verne gravitated towards deism . Some scholars believe his novels reflect a deist philosophy, as they often involve the notion of God or divine providence but rarely mention the concept of Christ. On 9 March 1886, as Verne returned home, his twenty-six-year-old nephew, Gaston, shot at him twice with a pistol . The first bullet missed, but the second one entered Verne's left leg, giving him

441-492: A Catholic school suiting the pious religious tastes of his father. Verne quickly distinguished himself in mémoire (recitation from memory), geography, Greek, Latin, and singing. In the same year, 1836, Pierre Verne bought a vacation house at 29 Rue des Réformés in the village of Chantenay (now part of Nantes) on the Loire. In his brief memoir Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse ( Memories of Childhood and Youth , 1890), Verne recalled

588-533: A Nantes woman from a local family of navigators and shipowners, of distant Scottish descent. In 1829, the Verne family moved some hundred metres away to No. 2 Quai Jean-Bart, where Verne's brother Paul was born the same year. Three sisters, Anne "Anna" (1836), Mathilde (1839), and Marie (1842), followed. In 1834, at the age of six, Verne was sent to boarding school at 5 Place du Bouffay in Nantes. The teacher, Madame Sambin,

735-478: A chance to court Morel in earnest, he jumped at her brother's offer to go into business with a broker. Verne's father was initially dubious but gave in to his son's requests for approval in November 1856. With his financial situation finally looking promising, Verne won the favor of Morel and her family, and the couple were married on 10 January 1857. Verne plunged into his new business obligations, leaving his work at

882-492: A copy of " Captain Claridge 's work on the " Water Cure ", as practised by Priessnitz , at Graefenberg" and, "making allowances for certain exaggerations therein", pondered the option of travelling to Graefenberg, but preferred to find something closer to home, with access to his own doctors in case of failure: "I who scarcely lived through a day without leech or potion!". After reading a pamphlet by Doctor James Wilson, who operated

1029-577: A deep fascination with the river and with the many merchant vessels navigating it. He also took vacations at Brains , in the house of his uncle Prudent Allotte, a retired shipowner, who had gone around the world and served as mayor of Brains from 1828 to 1837. Verne took joy in playing interminable rounds of the Game of the Goose with his uncle, and both the game and his uncle's name would be memorialized in two late novels ( The Will of an Eccentric (1900) and Robur

1176-516: A dream he described his misery. This requited but aborted love affair seems to have permanently marked the author and his work, and his novels include a significant number of young women married against their will (Gérande in Master Zacharius (1854), Sava in Mathias Sandorf (1885), Ellen in A Floating City (1871), etc.), to such an extent that the scholar Christian Chelebourg attributed

1323-504: A few weeks later after a public outcry. This she chronicled in a memoir, A Blighted Life (1880). She continued attacking her husband's character for several years. The death of Bulwer's mother in 1843 meant his "exhaustion of toil and study had been completed by great anxiety and grief," and by "about the January of 1844, I was thoroughly shattered." In his mother's room at Knebworth House , which he inherited, he "had inscribed above

1470-441: A friend of his mother's. While continuing his law studies, he fed his passion for the theater, writing numerous plays. Verne later recalled: "I was greatly under the influence of Victor Hugo , indeed, very excited by reading and re-reading his works. At that time I could have recited by heart whole pages of Notre Dame de Paris , but it was his dramatic work that most influenced me." Another source of creative stimulation came from

1617-588: A furnished apartment at 24 Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie, which he shared with Édouard Bonamy, another student of Nantes origin. (On his 1847 Paris visit, Verne had stayed at 2 Rue Thérèse, the house of his aunt Charuel, on the Butte Saint-Roch.) Verne arrived in Paris during a time of political upheaval: the French Revolution of 1848 . In February, Louis Philippe I had been overthrown and had fled; on 24 February,

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1764-544: A hydropathic establishment with James Manby Gully at Malvern , he stayed there for "some nine or ten weeks", after which he "continued the system some seven weeks longer under Doctor Weiss, at Petersham ", then again at "Doctor Schmidt's magnificent hydropathic establishment at Boppart" (at the former Marienberg Convent at Boppard ), after developing a cold and fever upon his return home. The English Rosicrucian society, founded in 1867 by Robert Wentworth Little , claimed Bulwer-Lytton as their "Grand Patron", but he wrote to

1911-836: A language that his father had been very interested in. In 1989, Verne's great-grandson discovered his ancestor's as-yet-unpublished novel Paris in the Twentieth Century , which was subsequently published in 1994. Verne's largest body of work is the Voyages extraordinaires series, which includes all of his novels except for the two rejected manuscripts Paris in the Twentieth Century and Backwards to Britain (published posthumously in 1994 and 1989, respectively) and for projects left unfinished at his death (many of which would be posthumously adapted or rewritten for publication by his son Michel). Verne also wrote many plays, poems, song texts, operetta libretti , and short stories, as well as

2058-541: A lay student. His unfinished novel Un prêtre en 1839 ( A Priest in 1839 ), written in his teens and the earliest of his prose works to survive, describes the seminary in disparaging terms. From 1844 to 1846, Verne and his brother were enrolled in the Lycée Royal (now the Lycée Georges-Clemenceau ) in Nantes. After finishing classes in rhetoric and philosophy, he took the baccalauréat at Rennes and received

2205-449: A living. They had two children, Emily Elizabeth Bulwer-Lytton (1828–1848), and (Edward) Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831–1891) who became Governor-General and Viceroy of British India (1876–1880). His writing and political work strained their marriage and his infidelity embittered Rosina. In 1833, they separated acrimoniously and in 1836 the separation became legal. Three years later, Rosina published Cheveley, or

2352-603: A long-term contract in which Verne would give him three volumes of text per year, each of which Hetzel would buy outright for a flat fee. Verne, finding both a steady salary and a sure outlet for writing at last, accepted immediately. For the rest of his lifetime, most of his novels would be serialized in Hetzel's Magasin before their appearance in book form, beginning with his second novel for Hetzel, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1864–65). When The Adventures of Captain Hatteras

2499-480: A magazine, and accepted the novel, giving Verne suggestions for improvement. Verne made the proposed revisions within two weeks and returned to Hetzel with the final draft, now titled Five Weeks in a Balloon . It was published by Hetzel on 31 January 1863. To secure his services for the planned magazine, to be called the Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation ( Magazine of Education and Recreation ), Hetzel also drew up

2646-471: A native of Vienna, founded the "All German Society for Metaphysics" in Munich in 1919 or 1921, which was linked to the "Vril Society". According to this text, the originally only female members of this society were involved with magical energies that were connected to the "Vril force". The protest against the short hair fashion of the 1920s and the wearing of long hairstyles played an important role in connection with

2793-568: A neighbor: living on the same floor in the Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie apartment house was a young composer, Aristide Hignard , with whom Verne soon became good friends, and Verne wrote several texts for Hignard to set as chansons . During this period, Verne's letters to his parents primarily focused on expenses and on a suddenly appearing series of violent stomach cramps , the first of many he would suffer from during his life. (Modern scholars have hypothesized that he suffered from colitis ; Verne believed

2940-639: A new force of nature - the Vril Force. Through contact with the novel's narrator, the Vril-ya learn about the humans living on the surface of the Earth and question him in detail about human society. The narrator manages to escape from the realm of the Vril-ya and at the end of the novel he warns his readers of the danger that the Vril-ya would pose to humanity if they were ever to return to the surface. While contemporary critics saw The Coming Race as satire, other sections of

3087-460: A particularly peculiar group: In 1930, two smaller pamphlets entitled Weltdynamismus were published and Vril. Die kosmische Urkraft, which were published by an occult circle that called itself the "Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft 'Das kommende Deutschland'" (RAG). In it, the RAG claimed to have an elaborate technology that was suitable for utilizing the "Vril" force. The structure and functional principle of

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3234-417: A permanent limp that could not be overcome. This incident was not publicised in the media, but Gaston spent the rest of his life in a mental asylum . After the deaths of both his mother and Hetzel (who died in 1886), Jules Verne began publishing darker works. In 1888 he entered politics and was elected town councillor of Amiens , where he championed several improvements and served for fifteen years. Verne

3381-528: A provisional government of the French Second Republic took power, but political demonstrations continued, and social tension remained. In June, barricades went up in Paris, and the government sent Louis-Eugène Cavaignac to crush the insurrection. Verne entered the city shortly before the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as the first president of the Republic, a state of affairs that would last until

3528-611: A secure future in law reached its climax in January 1852, when his father offered Verne his own Nantes law practice. Faced with this ultimatum, Verne decided conclusively to continue his literary life and refuse the job, writing: "Am I not right to follow my own instincts? It's because I know who I am that I realize what I can be one day." Meanwhile, Verne was spending much time at the Bibliothèque nationale de France , conducting research for his stories and feeding his passion for science and recent discoveries, especially in geography . It

3675-558: A select few. This psychic energy should therefore allow the mastery of all of nature. Several books mention a Vril-ya Club founded in London in 1904, which is said to have addressed this issue. Bulwer-Lytton's writings are passed on in the New Thought movement. It was particularly momentous that the theosophist William Scott-Elliot described the vril in his 1896 pamphlet The Story of Atlantis in connection with airships, which it served as

3822-582: A sharp condemnation of scientific hubris and ambition, followed soon afterward by A Winter Amid the Ice , a polar adventure story whose themes closely anticipated many of Verne's novels. The Musée also published some nonfiction popular science articles which, though unsigned, are generally attributed to Verne. Verne's work for the magazine was cut short in 1856 when he had a serious quarrel with Pitre-Chevalier and refused to continue contributing (a refusal he would maintain until 1863, when Pitre-Chevalier died, and

3969-419: A short time, but Grossetière's parents frowned upon the idea of their daughter marrying a young student of uncertain future. They married her instead to Armand Terrien de la Haye, a rich landowner ten years her senior, on 19 July 1848. The sudden marriage sent Verne into deep frustration. He wrote a hallucinatory letter to his mother, apparently composed in a state of half-drunkenness, in which under pretext of

4116-517: A stage comedy, Les Pailles rompues ( The Broken Straws ). The two young men revised the play together, and Dumas, through arrangements with his father, had it produced by the Opéra-National at the Théâtre Historique in Paris, opening on 12 June 1850. In 1851, Verne met with a fellow writer from Nantes, Pierre-Michel-François Chevalier (known as "Pitre-Chevalier"), the editor-in-chief of

4263-595: A subterranean race waiting to reclaim the surface of the Earth is an early science fiction theme. The book popularised the Hollow Earth theory and may have inspired Nazi mysticism. His term "vril" lent its name to Bovril meat extract. The book was also the theme of a fundraising event held at the Royal Albert Hall in 1891, the Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete . "Vril" has been adopted by theosophists and occultists since

4410-417: A varied and prolific literary output, sometimes publishing anonymously. Bulwer-Lytton published Falkland in 1827, a novel which was only a moderate success. But Pelham brought him public acclaim in 1828 and established his reputation as a wit and dandy. Its intricate plot and humorous, intimate portrayal of pre-Victorian dandyism kept gossips busy trying to associate public figures with characters in

4557-556: A variety of essays and miscellaneous non-fiction. After his debut under Hetzel, Verne was enthusiastically received in France by writers and scientists alike, with George Sand and Théophile Gautier among his earliest admirers. Several notable contemporary figures, from the geographer Vivien de Saint-Martin to the critic Jules Claretie , spoke highly of Verne and his works in critical and biographical notes. However, Verne's growing popularity among readers and playgoers (due especially to

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4704-489: A wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism . His reputation was markedly different in the Anglosphere where he had often been labeled a writer of genre fiction or children's books, largely because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels have often been printed. Since the 1980s, his literary reputation has improved. Jules Verne has been the second most-translated author in

4851-772: A year. The most successful of these are: Voyage au centre de la Terre ( Journey to the Center of the Earth , 1864); De la Terre à la Lune ( From the Earth to the Moon , 1865); Vingt mille lieues sous les mers ( Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas , 1869); and Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours ( Around the World in Eighty Days ), which first appeared in Le Temps in 1872. Verne could now live on his writings, but most of his wealth came from

4998-570: Is based on conjecture and pseudo-facts. In the 1990s, the legend of the "Vril Society" was further developed. Norbert Jürgen-Ratthofer and Ralf Ettl linked them in 1992 in their publication The Vril Project mit dem älteren Mythos der „ NS-Flugscheiben ". According to them, the "Vril Society" had developed from the Thule Society and pursued esoteric studies. In the early 1920s, the Aldebarans made telepathic contact with it and with an inner circle of

5145-421: Is his own, the history of the universe". Late in life, Verne confirmed that this commission had become the running theme of his novels: "My object has been to depict the earth, and not the earth alone, but the universe... And I have tried at the same time to realize a very high ideal of beauty of style. It is said that there can't be any style in a novel of adventure, but it isn't true." However, he also noted that

5292-542: Is now known that the legend is an exaggerated tale invented by Verne's first biographer, his niece Marguerite Allotte de la Füye, though it may have been inspired by a real incident. In 1840, the Vernes moved again to a large apartment at No. 6 Rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, where the family's youngest child, Marie, was born in 1842. In the same year Verne entered another religious school, the Petit Séminaire de Saint-Donatien, as

5439-463: Is that the "Third Reich" is being reinterpreted and positively valorized from the perspective of esoteric world views. Concepts originally developed there, such as the Black Sun, have now also had a significant influence on popular culture outside these circles, as can be seen in computer games such as Wolfenstein . No reputable sources were provided on the life and work of Maria Oršić and the members of

5586-607: The Black Sun , which had been discussed in the circle around Landig since the 1950s. The text Das Vril-Projekt ( The Vril Project ), published by the Tempelhof Society, was originally little known. The legend attracted greater attention when it was taken up by Jan Udo Holey and reached a wider readership through his books. Holey, who is associated with brown esotericism, published the book Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht im 20. Jahrhundert ( Secret Societies and their Power in

5733-491: The Chancellor's Gold Medal for English verse. In the following year he took his BA degree and printed for private circulation a small volume of poems, Weeds and Wild Flowers . He purchased an army commission in 1826, but sold it in 1829 without serving. In August 1827, he married Rosina Doyle Wheeler (1802–1882), a noted Irish beauty, but against the wishes of his mother, who withdrew his allowance, forcing him to work for

5880-704: The Corn Laws , he stood for Hertfordshire as a Conservative . Bulwer-Lytton held that seat until 1866, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton of Knebworth in the County of Hertford. In 1858, he entered Lord Derby 's government as Secretary of State for the Colonies , thus serving alongside his old friend Benjamin Disraeli . He was comparatively inactive in the House of Lords . "Just prior to his government's defeat in 1859

6027-501: The French coup of 1851 . In a letter to his family, Verne described the bombarded state of the city after the recent June Days uprising but assured them that the anniversary of Bastille Day had gone by without any significant conflict. Verne used his family connections to make an entrance into Paris society. His uncle Francisque de Chatêaubourg introduced him into literary salons , and Verne particularly frequented those of Mme de Barrère,

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6174-607: The January Uprising . Hetzel, not wanting to alienate the lucrative Russian market for Verne's books, demanded that Nemo be made an enemy of the slave trade , a situation that would make him an unambiguous hero. Verne, after fighting vehemently against the change, finally invented a compromise in which Nemo's past is left mysterious. After this disagreement, Verne became notably cooler in his dealings with Hetzel, taking suggestions into consideration but often rejecting them outright. From that point, Verne published two or more volumes

6321-617: The Magazine d'Éducation et de Récréation , a Hetzel biweekly publication, before being published in book form. His brother Paul contributed to 40th French climbing of the Mont-Blanc and a collection of short stories – Doctor Ox – in 1874. Verne became wealthy and famous. Meanwhile, Michel Verne married an actress against his father's wishes, had two children by an underage mistress and buried himself in debts. The relationship between father and son improved as Michel grew older. Though raised as

6468-658: The Musée des familles : Martin Paz , a novella set in Lima , which Verne wrote in 1851 and published 10 July through 11 August 1852, and Les Châteaux en Californie, ou, Pierre qui roule n'amasse pas mousse ( The Castles in California, or, A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss ), a one-act comedy full of racy double entendres . In April and May 1854, the magazine published Verne's short story Master Zacharius , an E. T. A. Hoffmann -like fantasy featuring

6615-512: The SS , through which they received plans to build a flying machine. In 1922, the "Vril Society" is said to have used this information to build a saucer-shaped flying ship, the so-called "Beyond Flying Machine". Through various intermediate steps, in which the Austrian inventor Viktor Schauberger is said to have been involved, this then allegedly led to the construction of a version ("V7"), in which members of

6762-726: The almighty dollar ", " the pen is mightier than the sword ", " dweller on the threshold ", "the great unwashed", and the opening phrase " It was a dark and stormy night ." The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest , held annually since 1982, claims to seek the "opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels". Bulwer was born on 25 May 1803 to General William Earle Bulwer of Heydon Hall and Wood Dalling , Norfolk, and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton , daughter of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth House , Hertfordshire. He had two older brothers, William Earle Lytton Bulwer (1799–1877) and Henry (1801–1872; later Baron Dalling and Bulwer). His father died and his mother moved to London when he

6909-435: The best man at the wedding of a Nantes friend, Auguste Lelarge, to an Amiens woman named Aimée du Fraysne de Viane. Verne, invited to stay with the bride's family, took to them warmly, befriending the entire household and finding himself increasingly attracted to the bride's sister, Honorine Anne Hébée Morel (née du Fraysne de Viane), a widow aged 26 with two young children. Hoping to find a secure source of income, as well as

7056-474: The "Third Reich". For example, references to Bahn and Gehring's interpretation of the RAG can be found in the publications of the Sonnenwacht association, which, according to critics, "uses neo-pagan esotericism as a cover for right-wing extremism". Final solution Parties Edward Bulwer-Lytton Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton , PC (25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873),

7203-499: The "Vril Society" are said to have traveled to Aldebaran in 1945. In addition, further saucer-shaped aircraft (with names such as "Vril" and "Haunebu") were allegedly developed, with the help of which members of the Vril Society and the SS finally set off for Antarctic New Swabia in 1945. Jürgen-Ratthofer and Ettl were members of the so-called Tempelhof Society, which had been active since

7350-787: The 1870s and became closely associated with the ideas of an esoteric neo-Nazism after 1945. His play Money (1840) was first produced at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket , London, on 8 December 1840. The first American production was at the Old Park Theater in New York on 1 February 1841. Subsequent productions include the Prince of Wales's Theatre 's in 1872 and as the inaugural play at the new California Theatre in San Francisco in 1869. Among Bulwer-Lytton's lesser-known contributions to literature

7497-543: The 1880s, and in Italy until 1910. Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1848) provided character names (but little else) for Verdi's opera Aroldo (1857). Shortly after their first publication, The Last Days of Pompeii , Rienzi , and Ernest Maltravers all received successful stage performances in New York. The plays were written by Louisa Medina, one of the most successful playwrights of

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7644-494: The 1980s under the aegis of its "grand commander" Hans-Günter Fröhlich. The Tempelhof Society brought out several small publications and organized regular meetings that demonstrated its connections to the German-speaking right-wing extremist network of the time. The first comprehensive publication of the Tempelhof Society appeared in 1987 under the title Einblick in die magische Weltsicht und die magischen Prozesse ( Insight into

7791-544: The 19th century. The Last Days of Pompeii had the longest continuous stage run in New York at the time with 29 straight performances. In addition to his political and literary work, Bulwer-Lytton became the editor of the New Monthly in 1831, but he resigned the following year. In 1841, he started the Monthly Chronicle , a semi-scientific magazine. During his career he wrote poetry, prose, and stage plays; his last novel

7938-551: The 20th Century ) in 1993 under the pseudonym "Jan van Helsing", which is said to have sold 100,000 copies by 1996 alone. In it, he reproduces the scenario by Jürgen-Ratthofer and Ettl, but without clearly identifying their authorship. Her writing is listed in Holey's bibliography, but there is no reference to her authorship in the relevant chapter. In his 1997 book Unternehmen Aldebaran , Holey repeated this scenario and expanded it with more extensive references to Nazi UFOs and secret bases in

8085-724: The Antarctic. Variations of this legend can also be found in more recent publications by other authors, e.g. Heiner Gehring and Karl-Heinz Zunneck, in the Study Buddhism , in Arcanorum Causam Nostrum , with Armin Risi and not least Henry Stevens . Other variations of the legend focus more strongly on the alleged role of a woman, who was already mentioned in 1992 in the Vril Project by Jürgen-Ratthofer and Ettl and also later at Holey

8232-628: The Bibliothèque to do scientific and historical research, much of which he copied onto notecards for future use—a system he would continue for the rest of his life. According to the recollections of a colleague, Verne "did better in repartee than in business". In July 1858, Verne and Aristide Hignard seized an opportunity offered by Hignard's brother: a sea voyage, at no charge, from Bordeaux to Liverpool and Scotland. The journey, Verne's first trip outside France, deeply impressed him, and upon his return to Paris he fictionalized his recollections to form

8379-621: The Conqueror (1886), respectively). Legend has it that in 1839, at the age of 11, Verne secretly procured a spot as cabin boy on the three-mast ship Coralie with the intention of traveling to the Indies and bringing back a coral necklace for his cousin Caroline. The evening the ship set out for the Indies, it stopped first at Paimboeuf where Pierre Verne arrived just in time to catch his son and make him promise to travel "only in his imagination". It

8526-729: The Crisis . Lord Melbourne , the Prime Minister , offered him a lordship of the Admiralty , which he declined as likely to interfere with his activity as an author. Bulwer was created a baronet , of Knebworth House in the County of Hertford, in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom , in 1838. In 1841, he left Parliament and spent much of his time in travel. He did not return to politics until 1852, when, having differed from Lord John Russell over

8673-428: The Light" (Luminous Lodge). The "Vril Society" maintained close contacts with the Theosophical Society , the Rosicrucians and in particular the Thule Society and was an important Nazi organization. The sect that Ley recalls bears only a superficial resemblance to the "Vril Society" of the book Dawn of the Third Millennium . The authors never provided further evidence for their far-reaching speculations, not even for

8820-408: The Man of Honour (1839), a near-libellous fiction satirising her husband's alleged hypocrisy. In June 1858, when her husband was standing as parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, she denounced him at the hustings . He retaliated by threatening her publishers, withholding her allowance and denying her access to their children. Finally he had her committed to a mental asylum, but she was released

8967-478: The Pacific". Lytton desired to send to the colony "representatives of the best of British culture, not just a police force", sought men who possessed "courtesy, high breeding and urbane knowledge of the world", and decided to send Moody, whom the Government considered to be the archetypal "English gentleman and British Officer" at the head of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment , to whom he wrote an impassioned letter. The former HBC Fort Dallas at Camchin ,

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9114-435: The Power of the Coming Race and Zanoni in her own books. Bulwer-Lytton's name lives on in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest , in which contestants think up terrible openings for imaginary novels, inspired by the first line of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford : It was a dark and stormy night ; the rain fell in torrents – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up

9261-445: The RAG publications. From another RAG publication, of the Zeitschrift für Weltdynamismus , it becomes clear that RAG was founded in Berlin in 1930 by a certain Johannes Täufer. Täufer was also responsible for the brochure "Vril". Die kosmische Urkraft , but nothing more is known about his person. The name is probably a pseudonym , and it has been suggested that it may have been the publisher Otto Wilhelm Barth, who had published two of

9408-405: The RAG publications. Fritz Klein , a patron of Schappeller whose writings were recommended by RAG, may also have been behind this. A comparison between Ley's memoirs and the contents of the RAG writings leads to the conclusion that the "Truth Society" and the RAG could actually have been the same group. However, it seems to have only had a short-term and marginal significance in the occult scene of

9555-452: The Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, notified Sir George Ferguson Bowen of his appointment as Governor of the new colony to be known as 'Queen's Land'." The draft letter was ranked #4 in the 'Top 150: Documenting Queensland' exhibition when it toured to venues around Queensland from February 2009 to April 2010. The exhibition was part of Queensland State Archives ' events and exhibition program which contributed to

9702-538: The Third Reich developed. pseudo-historical interpretations of the Third Reich, in which occult elements played a central role. In this context, the "Vril" concept and the aforementioned references to occultist groups were also cited as historical evidence. The earliest reference to an alleged secret society with the name "Vril Society" can be found in a publication from 1960. Since then, the topic has been taken up again and again in several variations in conspiracy theory and esoteric literature. literature again and again. While

9849-449: The Théâtre Lyrique and taking up a full-time job as an agent de change on the Paris Bourse , where he became the associate of the broker Fernand Eggly. Verne woke up early each morning so that he would have time to write, before going to the Bourse for the day's work; in the rest of his spare time, he continued to consort with the Onze-Sans-Femme club (all eleven of its "bachelors" had by this time married). He also continued to frequent

9996-423: The West to be translated into Japanese. In Brisbane , Queensland , Australia, the suburb of Lytton , the town of Bulwer on Moreton Island (Moorgumpin) and the neighbourhood (former island) of Bulwer Island are named after him. The township of Lytton, Quebec (today part of Montcerf-Lytton ) was named after him as was Lytton, British Columbia , and Lytton, Iowa . Lytton Road in Gisborne, New Zealand ,

10143-441: The alleged names of this group. Their claims must therefore be classified as fictions. In addition, historical research came to the conclusion that the occult groups existing at the time (for example the Thule Society) did not exert any significant influence on Hitler and the NSDAP . Although connections between occult ideas and the world view of individual National Socialists (especially Himmler ) can be proven, they do not support

10290-467: The backbone of a semi-autobiographical novel, Backwards to Britain (written in the autumn and winter of 1859–1860 and not published until 1989). A second complimentary voyage in 1861 took Hignard and Verne to Stockholm , from where they traveled to Christiania and through Telemark . Verne left Hignard in Denmark to return in haste to Paris, but missed the birth on 3 August 1861 of his only biological son, Michel . Meanwhile, Verne continued work on

10437-424: The book. Pelham resembled Benjamin Disraeli's first novel Vivian Grey (1827). The character of the villainous Richard Crawford in The Disowned , also published in 1828, borrowed much from that of banker and forger Henry Fauntleroy , who was hanged in London in 1824 before a crowd of some 100,000. Bulwer-Lytton admired Disraeli's father Isaac D'Israeli , himself a noted author. They began corresponding in

10584-545: The confluence of the Thompson and the Fraser Rivers , was renamed in his honour by Governor Sir James Douglas in 1858 as Lytton, British Columbia . Bulwer-Lytton's literary career began in 1820 with the publication of a book of poems and spanned much of the 19th century. He wrote in a variety of genres, including historical fiction, mystery, romance, the occult and science fiction. He financed his extravagant way of life with

10731-413: The creation of the Voyages extraordinaires , a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). His novels, always well-researched according to the scientific knowledge then available, are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account

10878-408: The dead or destroy. Originally a people who lived on the surface of the earth, the Vril-ya were cut off from the rest of humanity by a natural disaster and moved into an underground cave system where they found a new home. There, in a history marked by wars and social upheaval, they eventually evolved into an egalitarian society practicing eugenics , superior to all other races, through the discovery of

11025-504: The deluge, to gaze upon the boisterous sea, which foamed and bellowed for admittance into the proud towers and marble palaces. Who would have thought of passions so fierce in that calm water that slumbers all day long? At a slight alabaster stand, trembling beneath the ponderous tomes which it supported, sat the hero of our story. Several of Bulwer-Lytton's novels were made into operas. One of them, Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (1842) by Richard Wagner , eventually became more famous than

11172-466: The desire for a unification of science and religion. A total of four translations of Bulwer-Lytton's book were published in Germany between 1874 and 1924, including one, which Anthroposophist Guenther Wachsmuth at the request of Rudolf Steiner . The term "Vril" therefore became known to a wider public in Germany until the 1920s. As a result, lay theories flourished, claiming to be able to fill alleged gaps in

11319-511: The development of Reichsflugscheibes and other armaments projects. After the dissolution of the Tempelhof Society, Ralf Ettl founded the Causa Nostra circle of friends, which continues to disseminate such ideas to this day, sometimes in a modified form. Causa Nostra also maintains links with the Swiss publisher Unitall, whose publications incorporate the ideas of the Tempelhof Society / Causa Nostra in

11466-476: The driving force behind. This characteristic of the vril, already described in The Coming Race , became a main reference for certain developments after World War II due to Scott-Elliot's explicit Atlantis association. As early as the mid-1890s, new scientific discoveries, such as the discovery of X-rays, led to the widespread view, even among intellectuals, that science could not yet claim to have finally solved

11613-532: The end of 1854, another outbreak of cholera led to the death of Jules Seveste, Verne's employer at the Théâtre Lyrique and by then a good friend. Though his contract only held him to a further year of service, Verne remained connected to the theater for several years after Seveste's death, seeing additional productions to fruition. He also continued to write plays and musical comedies, most of which were not performed. In May 1856, Verne traveled to Amiens to be

11760-487: The family law practice. In 1847, Verne's father sent him to Paris, primarily to begin his studies in law school, and secondarily (according to family legend) to distance him temporarily from Nantes. His cousin Caroline, with whom he was in love, was married on 27 April 1847, to Émile Dezaunay, a man of 40, with whom she would have five children. After a short stay in Paris, where he passed first-year law exams, Verne returned to Nantes for his father's help in preparing for

11907-514: The first versions of this legend still rejected National Socialism, more recent versions of the legend directly or indirectly serve a positive reinterpretation of the Third Reich. The existence of a "vril society" was first claimed by the French authors Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier . In their book Le matin des magiciens ( Departure into the third millennium ), published in 1960, they represented

12054-581: The form of novels and non-fiction books. The myth of the Nazi UFOs arose independently of the aforementioned authors and was essentially inspired by the writings of Miguel Serrano , Ernst Zündel and Wilhelm Landig characterized. The graphic representations of German flying disks circulating today are mostly based on drawings that were distributed in the 1980s by Ralf Ettl's Abraxas Videofilm Produktionsgesellschaft mbH and first published by D. H. Haarmann and O. Bergmann. The drawings were apparently inspired by

12201-399: The function of which is not explained in (pseudo-)physical terms, but in occult terms. In a longer section of one of the texts, the image of an apple cut in half is used as a model for the structure of the earth and its connection with the "space force". This and the contributions by proven Schappeller supporters suggest that it was primarily followers of the Austrian inventor who contributed to

12348-461: The grade "Good Enough" on 29 July 1846. By 1847, when Verne was 19, he had taken seriously to writing long works in the style of Victor Hugo , beginning Un prêtre en 1839 and seeing two verse tragedies, Alexandre VI and La Conspiration des poudres ( The Gunpowder Plot ), to completion. However, his father took it for granted that Verne, being the firstborn son of the family, would not attempt to make money in literature but would instead inherit

12495-511: The highly successful stage version of Around the World in Eighty Days ) led to a gradual change in his literary reputation. As the novels and stage productions continued to sell, many contemporary critics felt that Verne's status as a commercially popular author meant he could only be seen as a mere genre-based storyteller, rather than a serious author worthy of academic study. This denial of formal literary status took various forms, including dismissive criticism by such writers as Émile Zola and

12642-588: The horror story The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain (1859). Another novel with a supernatural theme was A Strange Story (1862), which was an influence on Bram Stoker 's Dracula . Bulwer-Lytton wrote many other works, including Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (1871) which drew heavily on his interest in the occult and contributed to the early growth of the science fiction genre. Its story of

12789-402: The idea of a "Roman de la Science", which he developed in a rough draft, inspired, according to his recollections, by his "love for maps and the great explorers of the world". It took shape as a story of travel across Africa and would eventually become his first published novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon . In 1862, through their mutual acquaintance Alfred de Bréhat, Verne came into contact with

12936-477: The illness to have been inherited from his mother's side. ) Rumors of an outbreak of cholera in March 1849 exacerbated these medical concerns. Yet another health problem would strike in 1851 when Verne suffered the first of four attacks of facial paralysis . These attacks, rather than being psychosomatic , were due to an inflammation in the middle ear , though this cause remained unknown to Verne during his life. In

13083-547: The invention of a Vril company after 1945 whether Willy Ley had actually referred to RAG: as will become clear below, later authors were at best inspired by Ley's statements for their own fantasies. Nonetheless, this group later formed a central building block for justifying the legends of the secret activities of a "Vril Society" in Germany from the 1920s to the 1940s. In the period after the Second World War, numerous conspiracy theory and pseudohistorical interpretations of

13230-476: The lack of Verne's nomination for membership in the Académie Française , and was recognized by Verne himself, who said in a late interview: "The great regret of my life is that I have never taken any place in French literature." To Verne, who considered himself "a man of letters and an artist, living in the pursuit of the ideal", this critical dismissal on the basis of literary ideology could only be seen as

13377-440: The late 1820s and met for the first time in March 1830, when Isaac D'Israeli dined at Bulwer-Lytton's house. Also present that evening were Charles Pelham Villiers and Alexander Cockburn . The young Villiers had a long parliamentary career, while Cockburn became Lord Chief Justice of England in 1859. Bulwer-Lytton reached his height of popularity with the publication of England and the English , and Godolphin (1833). This

13524-556: The line of novel that I was destined to follow". Dumas fils put Verne in contact with Jules Seveste, a stage director who had taken over the directorship of the Théâtre Historique and renamed it the Théâtre Lyrique . Seveste offered Verne the job of secretary of the theater, with little or no salary attached. Verne accepted, using the opportunity to write and produce several comic operas written in collaboration with Hignard and

13671-483: The machine described and the political program outlined are almost identical in structure and content to a brochure published by two Austrian authors as early as 1928, which propagated a perpetuum mobile that the Austrian Karl Schappeller is said to have invented. The RAG plans only differ from this in a few details. Overall, the impression is created that this is an improved version of Schappeller's machine,

13818-399: The magazine Musée des familles ( The Family Museum ). Pitre-Chevalier was looking for articles about geography, history, science, and technology, and was keen to make sure that the educational component would be made accessible to large popular audiences using a straightforward prose style or an engaging fictional story. Verne, with his delight in diligent research, especially in geography,

13965-538: The magazine went to new editorship). While writing stories and articles for Pitre-Chevalier, Verne began to form the idea of inventing a new kind of novel, a "Roman de la Science" ("novel of science"), which would allow him to incorporate large amounts of the factual information he so enjoyed researching in the Bibliothèque. He is said to have discussed the project with the elder Alexandre Dumas, who had tried something similar with an unfinished novel, Isaac Laquedem , and who enthusiastically encouraged Verne's project. At

14112-634: The magical world view and the magical processes ). Excerpts from this publication and from articles in the right-wing extremist magazine CODE prove that an exchange took place between the members of the Tempelhof Society and the circle around Wilhelm Landig , which mainly revolved around the Sumerian/Babylonian origins of the Germans and the concept of the Black Sun . The publications of the Tempelhof Society were instrumental in linking this esoteric concept of

14259-430: The mantelpiece a request that future generations preserve the room as his beloved mother had used it." It remains hardly changed to this day. On 20 February 1844, in accordance with his mother's will, he changed his surname from Bulwer to Bulwer-Lytton and assumed the arms of Lytton by royal licence. His widowed mother had done the same in 1811. His brothers remained plain "Bulwer". By chance, Bulwer-Lytton encountered

14406-586: The nomination in view of Moody's military record, his success as Governor of the Falkland Islands, and the distinguished record of his father, Colonel Thomas Moody, Knight at the Colonial Office. Moody was charged to establish British order and transform the newly established Colony of British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west" and "found a second England on the shores of

14553-468: The novel. Leonora (1846) by William Henry Fry , the first European-styled "grand" opera composed in the United States, is based on Bulwer-Lytton's play The Lady of Lyons , as is Frederic Cowen 's first opera Pauline (1876). Verdi rival Errico Petrella 's most successful opera, Jone (1858), was based on Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii , and was performed all over the world until

14700-764: The novels Invasion of the Sea and The Lighthouse at the End of the World after Jules's death. The Voyages extraordinaires series continued for several years afterwards at the same rate of two volumes a year. It was later discovered that Michel Verne had made extensive changes in these stories, and the original versions were eventually published at the end of the 20th century by the Jules Verne Society (Société Jules Verne). In 1919, Michel Verne published The Barsac Mission (French: L'Étonnante Aventure de la Mission Barsac ), whose original drafts contained references to Esperanto ,

14847-471: The original Craven Cottage , today the site of their stadium. Bulwer-Lytton had long suffered from a disease of the ear, and for the last two or three years of his life lived in Torquay nursing his health. After an operation to cure deafness , an abscess formed in the ear and burst; he endured intense pain for a week and died at 2 am on 18 January 1873, just short of his 70th birthday. The cause of death

14994-440: The original climax of Captain Hatteras , including the death of the title character, Verne wrote an entirely new conclusion in which Hatteras survived. Hetzel also rejected Verne's next submission, Paris in the Twentieth Century , believing its pessimistic view of the future and its condemnation of technological progress were too subversive for a family magazine. (The manuscript, believed lost for some time after Verne's death,

15141-655: The pen is mightier than the sword He popularized the phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar " from his novel The Coming Race , and he is credited with " the great unwashed ", using this disparaging term in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford : He is certainly a man who bathes and "lives cleanly", (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed). The writers of theosophy were among those influenced by Bulwer-Lytton's work. Annie Besant and especially Helena Blavatsky incorporated his thoughts and ideas, particularly from The Last Days of Pompeii , Vril,

15288-693: The photos in George Adamski 's UFO classics. There is a complete lack of verifiable evidence for the scenarios described; the books contain only a few illustrations of questionable origin. There is no substantiated evidence for the references to the groups discussed above or to real people from contemporary history. The authors refer to messages transmitted by the media and anonymous informants (cf. e.g.), that defy all scrutiny. The topic seems to be particularly well received in circles of right-wing esotericism or esoteric neo-Nazism . A characteristic feature of this trend, which has been observable for some years now,

15435-459: The project was extremely ambitious: "Yes! But the Earth is very large, and life is very short! In order to leave a completed work behind, one would need to live to be at least 100 years old!" Hetzel influenced many of Verne's novels directly, especially in the first few years of their collaboration, for Verne was initially so happy to find a publisher that he agreed to almost all of the changes Hetzel suggested. For example, when Hetzel disapproved of

15582-472: The prolific librettist Michel Carré . To celebrate his employment at the Théâtre Lyrique, Verne joined with ten friends to found a bachelors' dining club, the Onze-sans-femme ( Eleven Bachelors ). For some time, Verne's father pressed him to abandon his writing and begin a business as a lawyer. However, Verne argued in his letters that he could only find success in literature. The pressure to plan for

15729-489: The public regarded it as an occultist roman à clef . In these circles, the view was held that Bulwer-Lytton was a member of the Rosicrucians and that the "Vril" force was an actually existing universal life force. According to this view, the novel was merely a vehicle with which Bulwer-Lytton wanted to communicate secret knowledge to his readers under the guise of anonymity. Helena Blavatsky and other occult authors adopted

15876-510: The publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel , and submitted to him the manuscript of his developing novel, then called Voyage en Ballon . Hetzel, already the publisher of Honoré de Balzac , George Sand , Victor Hugo , and other well-known authors, had long been planning to launch a high-quality family magazine in which entertaining fiction would combine with scientific education. He saw Verne, with his demonstrated inclination toward scrupulously researched adventure stories, as an ideal contributor for such

16023-409: The recurring theme to a "Herminie complex". The incident also led Verne to bear a grudge against his birthplace and Nantes society, which he criticized in his poem La sixième ville de France ( The Sixth City of France ). In July 1848, Verne left Nantes again for Paris, where his father intended him to finish law studies and take up law as a profession. He obtained permission from his father to rent

16170-455: The salons, Verne diligently pursued his law studies and graduated with a licence en droit in January 1851. Thanks to his visits to salons, Verne came into contact in 1849 with Alexandre Dumas through the mutual acquaintance of a celebrated chirologist of the time, the Chevalier d'Arpentigny. Verne became close friends with Dumas' son, Alexandre Dumas fils , and showed him a manuscript for

16317-479: The same year, Verne was required to enlist in the French army, but the sortition process spared him, to his great relief. He wrote to his father: "You should already know, dear papa, what I think of the military life, and of these domestic servants in livery. ... You have to abandon all dignity to perform such functions." Verne's strong antiwar sentiments, to the dismay of his father, would remain steadfast throughout his life. Though writing profusely and frequenting

16464-527: The sciences, without taking into account that Bulwer-Lytton only wanted to write an entertainment novel in the style of Jules Verne . Before World War II , there was at least one private circle in Berlin whose members were explicitly involved with the "Vril" force. The few sources that prove the existence of this circle of people later became one of the starting points for the creation of the Vril society legend. One of

16611-465: The second year. (Provincial law students were in that era required to go to Paris to take exams.) While in Nantes, he met Rose Herminie Arnaud Grossetière, a young woman one year his senior, and fell intensely in love with her. He wrote and dedicated some thirty poems to her, including La Fille de l'air ( The Daughter of Air ), which describes her as "blonde and enchanting / winged and transparent". His passion seems to have been reciprocated, at least for

16758-464: The society complaining that he was "extremely surprised" by their use of the title, as he had "never sanctioned such." Nevertheless, a number of esoteric groups have continued to claim Bulwer-Lytton as their own, chiefly because some of his writings – such as the 1842 book Zanoni – have included Rosicrucian and other esoteric notions. According to the Fulham Football Club , he once resided in

16905-418: The society she allegedly led. Nevertheless, in the wake of the publications of the "right-wing extremist esotericist" Jan Udo Holey wrote a series of neo-pagan and, in part, neo-Nazi publications, secret societies, as well as a novel based on facts about the life and work of Maria Oršić and the "Vril Society". Not least through a publication by the authors Peter Bahn and Heiner Gehring, in which an attempt

17052-636: The sources of evidence for the existence of such a group is an article by the German rocket pioneer Willy Ley , which he published in 1947 in the American science fiction magazine Astounding Science Fiction . In it, he attempts to explain to his readers why National Socialism was able to fall on fertile ground in Germany and attributes this to the great popularity of irrational beliefs in pre-war Germany. He describes various examples of pseudoscience and esoteric currents and in this context also mentions what he sees as

17199-622: The stage adaptations of Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (1874) and Michel Strogoff (1876), which he wrote with Adolphe d'Ennery . In 1867, Verne bought a small boat, the Saint-Michel , which he successively replaced with the Saint-Michel II and the Saint-Michel III as his financial situation improved. On board the Saint-Michel III , he sailed around Europe. After his first novel, most of his stories were first serialised in

17346-731: The state's Q150 celebrations, marking the 150th anniversary of the separation of Queensland from New South Wales. When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London, Bulwer-Lytton, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, requested that the War Office recommend a field officer, "a man of good judgement possessing a knowledge of mankind", to lead a Corps of 150 (later increased to 172) Royal Engineers, who had been selected for their "superior discipline and intelligence". The War Office chose Richard Clement Moody , and Lord Lytton, who described Moody as his "distinguished friend", accepted

17493-454: The streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Entrants in the contest seek to capture the rapid changes in point of view, the florid language, and the atmosphere of the full sentence. The opening was popularized by the Peanuts comic strip, in which Snoopy 's sessions on

17640-434: The suburb of Pinner , where the novelist lived, is named after him. Bulwer-Lytton was portrayed by the actor Brett Usher in the 1978 television serial Disraeli . Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne ( / v ɜːr n / ; French: [ʒyl ɡabʁijɛl vɛʁn] ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to

17787-441: The technological advances of the time. In addition to his novels, he wrote numerous plays, short stories, autobiographical accounts, poetry, songs, and scientific, artistic, and literary studies. His work has been adapted for film and television since the beginning of cinema, as well as for comic books, theater, opera, music and video games. Verne is considered to be an important author in France and most of Europe, where he has had

17934-457: The term "Vril" as a synonym for secret natural forces that could only be used by magic . In Blavatsky's first work Isis unveiled (1877), Vril was portrayed as a real, independent force. In her second book The Secret Doctrine in 1888, she described how the inhabitants of Atlantis had used Vril to build colossal structures. After the fall of Atlantis, a small group of surviving priests would have preserved this knowledge and only passed it on to

18081-504: The thesis that the Nazi leadership attempted to enter into alliances with supernatural powers. An occult secret society had played a central role in these efforts. Referring to the statements of Willy Ley and on the basis of research they had allegedly carried out themselves but not specified further, they claimed that this society had called itself the "Vril Society" or "The Lodge of the Brothers of

18228-475: The thesis that these occult circles had a comprehensive, systematic influence on Hitler and the entire National Socialist leadership. Pauwels and Bergier's book inspired other authors to speculate about the alleged role of the "Vril Society", such as J. H. Brennan or Trevor Ravenscroft . They also claim that there were close ties between the Thule Society , the Vril Society and the Nazi leadership, but this

18375-785: The time. There is no evidence of RAG in official registers, nor are there any records of its publications at the time in the archives of the Otto Wilhelm Barth publishing house. No further issues of either the Zeitschrift für Weltdynamismus or the Archiv für Alchemistische Forschung , which was published jointly with it, appeared. No documents exist for the period after 1930 that prove RAG's continued existence or influence on other circles. Nor can RAG's claim that it possessed "Vril" technology be regarded as proof that it actually succeeded in using it. Above all, however, it does not seem to be relevant to

18522-578: The typewriter usually began with " It was a dark and stormy night ". The same words also form the first sentence of Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal –winning novel A Wrinkle in Time . Similar wording appears in Edgar Allan Poe's 1831 short story " The Bargain Lost ", although not at the very beginning. It reads: It was a dark and stormy night. The rain fell in cataracts; and drowsy citizens started, from dreams of

18669-414: The use of these "vibrational magical" energies. These energies were also used to power so-called "otherworldly flying machines", in the construction of which they were involved. According to the text, the "Alldeutsche Gesellschaft für Metaphysik" later formed the "Antriebstechnische Werkstätten". There, other scientists and technicians, including a Munich professor named "W. O. Schumann", were involved in

18816-405: The world since 1979, ranking below Agatha Christie and above William Shakespeare . He has sometimes been called the "father of science fiction", a title that has also been given to H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback . In the 2010s, he was the most translated French author in the world. In France, 2005 was declared "Jules Verne Year" on the occasion of the centenary of the writer's death. Verne

18963-418: The world's mysteries and that invisible natural forces and energies still existed. Occult theories were not only cited as counter-concepts to natural science, but common thematic points of contact were also identified. Many occult circles responded to the unease caused by the materialism of scientific and technological modernity by attempting to formulate a doctrine of the control of earthly and cosmic forces that

19110-458: Was Kenelm Chillingly , which was in course of publication in Blackwood's Magazine at the time of his death in 1873. Bulwer-Lytton's works of fiction and non-fiction were translated in his day and since then into many languages, including Serbian (by Laza Kostic ), German, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Finnish, and Spanish. In 1879, his Ernest Maltravers was the first complete novel from

19257-646: Was a natural for the job. Verne first offered him a short historical adventure story , The First Ships of the Mexican Navy , written in the style of James Fenimore Cooper , whose novels had deeply influenced him. Pitre-Chevalier published it in July 1851, and in the same year published a second short story by Verne, A Voyage in a Balloon (August 1851). The latter story, with its combination of adventurous narrative, travel themes, and detailed historical research, would later be described by Verne as "the first indication of

19404-424: Was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, choosing Richard Clement Moody as founder of British Columbia. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866. Bulwer-Lytton's works were well known in his time. He coined famous phrases like "pursuit of

19551-499: Was born on 8 February 1828, on Île Feydeau, a then small artificial island on the river Loire within the town of Nantes (later filled in and incorporated into the surrounding land area), in No. 4 Rue Olivier-de-Clisson, the house of his maternal grandmother Dame Sophie Marie Adélaïde Julienne Allotte de La Fuÿe (born Guillochet de La Perrière). His parents were Pierre Verne, an avoué originally from Provins , and Sophie Allotte de La Fuÿe,

19698-506: Was finally published in 1994.) The relationship between publisher and writer changed significantly around 1869 when Verne and Hetzel were brought into conflict over the manuscript for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas . Verne had initially conceived of the submariner Captain Nemo as a Polish scientist whose acts of vengeance were directed against the Russians who had killed his family during

19845-708: Was followed by The Pilgrims of the Rhine (1834), The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes about Cola di Rienzo (1835), Ernest Maltravers; or, The Eleusinia (1837), Alice; or, The Mysteries (1838), Leila; or, The Siege of Granada (1838), and Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1848). The Last Days of Pompeii was inspired by Karl Briullov 's painting The Last Day of Pompeii , which Bulwer-Lytton saw in Milan . His New Timon lampooned Tennyson , who responded in kind. Bulwer-Lytton also wrote

19992-513: Was four years old. When he was 15, a tutor named Wallington, who tutored him at Ealing , encouraged him to publish an immature work: Ishmael and Other Poems . Around this time, Bulwer fell in love, but the woman's father induced her to marry another man. She died about the time that Bulwer went to Cambridge and he stated that her loss affected all his subsequent life. In 1822 Bulwer-Lytton entered Trinity College, Cambridge , where he met John Auldjo , but soon moved to Trinity Hall . In 1825 he won

20139-416: Was in this period that Verne met the illustrious geographer and explorer Jacques Arago , who continued to travel extensively despite his blindness (he had lost his sight completely in 1837). The two men became good friends, and Arago's innovative and witty accounts of his travels led Verne toward a newly developing genre of literature: that of travel writing . In 1852, two new pieces from Verne appeared in

20286-507: Was made a knight of France's Legion of Honour on 9 April 1870, and subsequently promoted in Legion of Honour rank to Officer on 19 July 1892. On 24 March 1905, while ill with chronic diabetes and complications from a stroke which paralyzed his right side, Verne died at his home in Amiens , 44 Boulevard Longueville (now Boulevard Jules-Verne). His son, Michel Verne, oversaw the publication of

20433-410: Was made to support the concept of a "primal energy" underlying all other forms of energy by referring to the historical tradition of this concept, the topics of "Vril" power and "Vril society" also attracted attention in those circles that believe in the reality of so-called "free energy". However, the "Vril" concept was also used by representatives of "brown esotericism" for a positive reinterpretation of

20580-426: Was mentioned: a medium named Maria Oršić. According to the Vril Project , Maria Oršić from Zagreb ( Croatia ) was involved in the founding of the "Vril Society" and also established the spiritualist contact with the Aldebarans. In a later text, which only circulates anonymously on the internet, the figure of Maria Oršić is transformed from a minor character into a central protagonist. This text claims that Maria Oršić,

20727-509: Was named after the novelist. Later a state secondary school, Lytton High School , was founded in the road. Also in New Zealand, Bulwer is a small locality in Waihinau Bay in the outer Pelorus Sound, New Zealand. It can be reached by 77 km of winding, mostly unsealed, road from Rai Valley. A weekly mail boat service delivers mail and also offers passenger services. In London, Lytton Road in

20874-426: Was on a par with the natural sciences. Around 1900, the fields of occultism and mysticism experienced a great upswing that lasted until the 1930s. As Theosophy was widespread at this time of the revival of occult movements, the "Vril" concept was also familiar in occult circles in Germany. Bulwer-Lytton's primal force appeared above all in contexts involving the creation of a "magic technique", whose designs expressed

21021-482: Was published in book form in 1866, Hetzel publicly announced his literary and educational ambitions for Verne's novels by saying in a preface that Verne's works would form a novel sequence called the Voyages extraordinaires ( Extraordinary Voyages or Extraordinary Journeys ), and that Verne's aim was "to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format that

21168-580: Was returned for Lincoln in 1832, and sat in Parliament for that city for nine years. He spoke in favour of the Reform Bill and took the lead in securing the reduction, after he had vainly supported the repeal, of the newspaper stamp duties . His influence was perhaps most keenly felt after the Whig Party 's dismissal from office in 1834, when he issued a pamphlet entitled A Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister on

21315-422: Was that he convinced Charles Dickens to revise the ending of Great Expectations to make it more palatable to the reading public, as in the original version of the novel, Pip and Estella remain apart. Bulwer-Lytton's works had an influence in a number of fields. Bulwer-Lytton's most famous quotation is " The pen is mightier than the sword " from his play Richelieu : beneath the rule of men entirely great,

21462-535: Was the widow of a naval captain who had disappeared some 30 years before. Madame Sambin often told the students that her husband was a shipwrecked castaway and that he would eventually return like Robinson Crusoe from his desert island paradise. The theme of the robinsonade would stay with Verne throughout his life and appear in many of his novels, some of which include The Mysterious Island (1874), Second Fatherland (1900), and The School for Robinsons (1882). In 1836, Verne went on to École Saint‑Stanislas,

21609-489: Was unclear but it was thought the infection had affected his brain and caused a fit. Rosina outlived him by nine years. Against his wishes, Bulwer-Lytton was honoured with a burial in Westminster Abbey . His unfinished history Athens: Its Rise and Fall was published posthumously. Bulwer began his political career as a follower of Jeremy Bentham . In 1831 he was elected member for St Ives , Cornwall, after which he

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