Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Three adventurers set out to kill a sea monster, but all is not as it seems. Out in the vast expanse of the Pacific they find not a beast but a submarine - the Nautilus, an advanced craft captained by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Captured and hauled aboard, they accompany him through coral reefs, shipwrecks, and ancient ruins. There they hunt sharks, and battle giant squid, not realising that the greatest danger is Nemo himself, who will stop at nothing in his quest for vengeance.

Beautifully illustrated by the French painter Édouard Riou, who worked with Jules Verne on six of his novels, this Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea also includes an afterword by author David Stuart Davies.

Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Jules Gabriel Verne was born in the seaport of Nantes, France, in 1828 and was destined to follow his father into the legal profession. In Paris to train for the bar, he took more readily to literary life, befriending Alexander Dumas and Victor Hugo, and living by theatre managing and libretto-writing. His first science-based novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was issued by the influential publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel in 1862, and made him famous. Verne and Hetzel collaborated to write dozens more such adventures, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1869 and Around the World in 80 Days in 1872. In later life Verne entered local politics at Amiens, where had had a home. He also kept a house in Paris, in the street now named Boulevard Jules Verne, and a beloved yacht, the Saint Michel, named after his son. He died in 1905.