The journey to the centre of the earth

Cover picture of a French double volume Five weeks in a balloon and The journey to the center of the earth

The Journey to the Center of the Earth ( Voyage au center de la terre ) is one of the most famous novels by the French writer Jules Verne . The book was first published in 1864 by the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel under the French title Voyage au center de la terre . The first German-language edition appeared in 1873 under the title Journey to the Center of the Earth .

action

The main character is the idiosyncratic German professor Otto Lidenbrock (around 58 years old), who lives in Hamburg and teaches mineralogy and geology there at the Johanneum .

The runes from the novel

The story begins on May 24, 1863. In a recently acquired manuscript by Snorri Sturluson (12th century), written in runes , Professor Lidenbrock finds an encrypted message from the (fictional) Icelandic alchemist Arne Saknussemm (the name is probably an allusion to Árni Magnússon ), who is said to have lived in the 16th century. Since he assumes that Saknussemm wants to communicate a scientific discovery, the professor forces his nephew and assistant Axel (19 years old), the first-person narrator of the novel, to help him decipher the cipher. For this purpose, he locks the housekeeper Marthe , Axel and himself in his house.

The journey into the Earth's interior begins at Snæfellsjökull ...

By chance, Axel can decipher the document, but is initially silent. Only when hunger has worn him down does he share his discovery with the professor. Arne Saknussemm writes that if a traveler climbs into the very crater of the Icelandic volcano "Sneffels Yocul / Snäfields Jöcul" ( Snæfellsjökull ), "which the shadow of Skartaris caresses before July 1," he arrives at the center of the earth; he made the trip himself. As a real geologist, Professor Lidenbrock decides to travel to the center of the earth as well, and Axel should accompany him.

The impatient Professor Lidenbrock and the anxious Axel leave Hamburg. After a stay in Copenhagen they arrive in Iceland. In Reykjavík they hire the eider duck hunter Hans Bjelke as a guide. The three of them climb Snæfellsjökull, climb into the crater and find the entrance to a cave on the crater floor.

You get deeper and deeper into the earth's interior. When they come to a fork in the road, they initially choose the wrong path. However, when the passage ends, they must return to the fork. In the meantime the water supply has run out and the expedition threatens to fail. During the night's camp, Hans leaves his companions to look for water. When he finds a water vein that flows past the cave wall, he fetches his companions. You cut a hole in the wall with the pickaxe so that a small stream now flows through the cave. In honor of their guide, he is called "Hansbach". During the further descent, Axel loses his companions. However, after a few days you will find yourself again with the help of a sound phenomenon similar to that in the dome of Saint Paul's Cathedral .

They come to the shore of an underground sea, which they cross on a raft. They come across huge mushrooms , which they identify as monstrous mushrooms. You will find more primeval plants and discover a small island with a geyser . After seeing only a few small fish at first, during the raft trip you will witness a fight between an Ichthyosaurus and a Plesiosaurus . Shortly afterwards the raft gets caught in a storm. During the storm, ball lightning rolls over the raft. The storm chases them across the sea until they shipwreck on its shore. Soon, however, they have to realize that this is not a strange coast, but the one from which they set off. When they used the time that Hans needed to build another raft to explore the coast a little further, Axel and the professor came across other animal and plant species that are now extinct, mussel shells from the "first earth period" and the remains of prehistoric humans . In the distance you can also see a large human-like figure, but after this discovery they quickly retreat.

... and at Stromboli is your end point

You will find traces of Saknussemm and another cave entrance. The cave ends after a few meters. As the travelers blast their way, the water of the subterranean sea plunges into an abyss and carries them away on their raft. They reach the crater of the erupting volcano first on water, then on lava and are thrown back onto the surface of the earth by this. It turns out to be the Italian island of Stromboli, north of Sicily . This puzzles them as they have kept moving northwards according to their compass.

Back in Hamburg, Professor Lidenbrock presented his discoveries to the professional world and earned a lot of fame for them. The only question that worries him is why they came out so far south. Ultimately, Axel finds an explanation for this: The ball lightning that they experienced in the subterranean sea reversed their compass so that they kept north for south all along.

Factory history

The book edition was published on November 25, 1864 under the title Voyage au center de la Terre by Pierre-Jules Hetzel . An illustrated edition with 56 drawings by Edouard Riou followed on May 13, 1867 . The German first edition The Journey to the Center of the Earth was published in 1873 by the Légrády brothers in Pest . The novel had previously appeared in German in sequels in the newspaper Ungarischer Lloyd in 1868 .

Adaptations

Film adaptations

The book was filmed several times. Among other things in 1959 with James Mason as professor and Pat Boone as his assistant. 1977 in Spain and Tenerife with Kenneth More in the lead role. In 1999, a two-part television film was made with Treat Williams and Bryan Brown in the lead roles. In 2008, the novel was Brendan Fraser once again in the lead role filmed , the same year appeared Journey to the Center of the Earth 2 of The Asylum .

Radio plays

Europe 1978:
- Editing: HG Francis .
- Director: Heikedine Körting .
- Actors: Klaus Schwarzkopf (Lidenbrock) , Stefan Schwade (Axel) .
BR 1980:
- Editing: Peter Irion .
- Director: Werner Simon .
- Actors: Karl-Maria Schley (Lidenbrock) , Frithjof Vierock (Axel) .
MDR / RBB 2005:
- Editing and direction: Leonhard Koppelmann .
- Music: Henrik Albrecht .
- Actors: Wolf-Dietrich Sprenger (Lidenbrock) , Florian Lukas (Axel) .

such as

1956, publisher: Leipzig Blindenhörbuch (audio book)
1973, director: Dagmar von Kurmin , publisher: Poly (radio play)
1978, director: Toyo Tanaka, publisher: Maritim (radio play)
1992, director: Mat Willies, publisher: Junior (radio play)
1996, Publisher: Junior Software (radio play)
2004, Publisher: Hoerbuch.cc (audio book)
2005, Publisher: Eltern (audio book)
2008, Publisher: Random House (Audiobook)
2012, director: Kati Schaefer, production for Ohrka eV (audio book)

Audio books

2008: Journey to the center of the earth ( Audible exclusive, read by Timmo Niesner ), Audible Studios
2014: The journey to the center of the earth (read by Karlheinz Gabor ), Audio Media Digital
2013: (Audible: 2005) Journey to the Center of the Earth (read by Rufus Beck ), cbj Audio, ISBN 978-3-8371-2065-3

Settings

British keyboardist Rick Wakeman composed a successful concept album in 1974 with Journey to the Center of the Earth . The LP with the London Symphony Orchestra , The English Chamber Choir and the English Rock Ensemble sold over 14 million copies. In 1999, Wakeman even brought out a sequel, Return to the Center of the Earth .

Games

In spring 2008, Franckh-Kosmos- Verlag published a board game by Rüdiger Dorn with the title “Journey to the Center of the Earth”.

The book was implemented several times as a computer game. In 1988 the action-adventure "Reise zum Zentrum der Erde" was released for PC, Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64. In 2003 the game "The Hidden Continent" by developer Frogwares was released, which loosely adheres to the motifs of the book. It was republished under the title "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

expenditure

Jules Verne : Journey to the Center of the Earth. Roman (original title: Voyage au center de la terre , translated by Volker Dehs ). Artemis and Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-538-06972-7

literature

William Butcher: Long Lost Manuscript: The True Antecedents Of Professor Lidenbrock, His Nephew Axel And Their Glorious Adventure Underground . In: The Modern Language Review . 93: 4, 1998, pp. 961-971 (online) .
Christian Chélebourg: Le Paradis des fossiles: Stylistique de l'histoire naturelle dans Voyage au center de la terre . In: Jean Bessière (ed.): Modernités de Jules Verne . PU de France, Paris 1988, pp. 213-227.
Allen A. Debus: Re-Framing the Science in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth . In: Science Fiction Studies 33: 3, pp. 405-20.
Lionel Dupuy: Ubiquité temporelle et imaginaire geographique: Voyage au center de la Terre de Jules Verne . In: Iris: Les Cahiers du Gerf 28, 2005, pp. 115-27.
Lionel Dupuy: Un Voyage au center de la terre dans Le Château des Carpathes . In: Australian Journal of French Studies 42: 3, 2005, pp. 318-28.
Piero Gondolo della Riva: George Sand inspiratrice de Jules Vernes . In: Elio Mosele (ed.): George Sand et son temps . Slatkine, Geneva 1994, pp. 1109-16.
Nigel Harkness: 'Textes fossiles': The Metatextual Geology of Verne's Voyage au center de la Terre . In: Modern Language Review 107: 4, 2012, pp. 1047-1063.
Daniel-Henri Pageaux: Voyages aux sources du Voyage au center de la terre . In: Revue de Litterature Comparee 54, 1980, pp. 202-12.
Brian Taves: One Destination, Many Journeys: Jules Verne's Center of the Earth on Screen . In: Matthew Wilhelm Kappell and Ace G. Pilkington (Eds.): The Fantastic Made Visible: Essays on the Adaptation of Science Fiction and Fantasy from Page to Screen . McFarland, Jefferson 2015, pp. 13-27.
Kiera Vaclavik: Jules Verne écrivain… de jeunesse: The Case of Voyage au center de la terre . In: Australian Journal of French Studies 42: 3, 2005, pp. 276-83.
Irene Zanot: Per una geografia del meraviglioso: Il Mundus Subterraneus di Athanasius Kircher come fonte del Voyage au center de la terre di Verne . In: Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate 64: 2, 2011, pp. 115-139.