Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the second most translated individual author in the world, according to Index Translationum. Som