Five weeks in the balloon

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Cinq semaines en ballon (J. Hetzel & Cie, Paris 1863, illustrated by Riou and de Montaut)
Itinerary
The Victoria crosses Senegal not far from the Gouina cataract

Five Weeks in a Ballon ( Cinq semaines en ballon ) is the first published novel by the French writer Jules Verne . The scientifically based travel novel was published in 1863 and quickly made Verne known in France . This was followed by other novels, which were published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel until after his death in 1905 , from 1873 on also internationally. Five weeks in a balloon is the first title in the novel series of Extraordinary Journeys ( Voyages extraordinaires ).

action

1862: The world traveler Dr. Samuel Fergusson claims to have solved the dirigible balloon problem, causing a stir at the Royal Geographical Society in London. Dr. Fergusson, an adventurer and geographer, wants to fathom the last secrets of the interior of Africa, such as the location of the sources of the Nile , which have been shrouded in mystery for thousands of years . His loyal servant Joe and his Scottish friend Dick Kennedy (persuaded to participate with great persuasion) are to accompany him. The gas balloon is equipped with an additional device that heats the gas inside the balloon to enable it to rise. This draws its energy from a "strong Bunsen battery" whose ability to supply enough electricity is not an issue in the novel even on the last day of the trip. The cooling of the gas inside the balloon causes the balloon to sink. As a result, there is no need to drop ballast for ascending and venting hydrogen for descending, and the supply of gas and ballast can be kept relatively constant. Another element of the construction of the Victoria balloon is the double envelope.

The start takes place on April 18, 1862. Amid many adventures and dangers, the balloon trip runs from east to west across Africa, starting on the island of Kumbeni near the island of Zanzibar . The travelers get to know the history of the discovery of Africa as well as the diversity of flora and fauna of the continent. Through a cleverly designed travel route, the researchers can get to know Lake Victoria, the Nile springs, Lake Chad, Bornu, the Sahara desert, Timbuktu and the jungle in the Niger region . The heroes are mistaken for gods, they allow themselves to be pulled by an elephant with an anchor rope tangled in its tusk, rescue a French missionary from cannibals, are threatened with death by dying of thirst, attacked by vultures and pursued and shot at by slave hunters. With a maximum altitude of 12,000 feet reached in the course of their journey, they even leave a thunderstorm below them. During a stay on the ground, they remove the outer shell of the double balloon damaged by the birds of prey. Fergusson is enthusiastic about the construction of the double hull, which allows a further flight despite the fact that the outer hull has become unusable. However, the remaining inner shell turns out to be porous as the journey progresses. As the journey progresses, they will have to drop more and more equipment to keep the balloon flying. Bit by bit, the gold ore collected by Joe, the pemmican reserve, and the gas heating system end up in the depths. The balloon basket is also taken down. Last is Victoria rebuilt by the expedition members still in a hot air balloon to the final hurdle of the trip across the Senegal near the cataract of Gouina to create. But in the end, after many hardships and adventures, they reached the west coast of Africa on May 24th, 1862.

History of origin

Through the Breton author Alfred de Bréhat (1822–1866), Jules Verne met the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814–1886) in autumn 1862 . Jules Verne submitted two of his manuscripts to him. Hetzel rejected the draft for a journey with obstacles to England and Scotland , written in the autumn and winter of 1859/1860 . For the second manuscript Un Voyage en l'air , which had been written in 1862, Hetzel requested some changes. It finally appeared on January 31, 1863 with the changed title Cinq semaines en ballon . The first illustrated edition followed on December 5, 1865, for which Édouard Riou and Henri de Montaut created 51 drawings.

On October 23, 1862, a first contractual agreement was reached between Verne and Hetzel, which guaranteed Verne 500 francs for his first novel with a print run of 2,000 copies. 3,000 copies were sold in 1863. Two more editions with 1,000 copies followed almost every year. By the time of Jules Verne's death in 1905, the non-illustrated edition had a total of 76,000 copies. Five weeks in the balloon was Verne's second most successful book in 80 days after a trip around the world .

The French theater director and journalist Félix Duquesnel (1832-1915) served Verne as a template for the servant Joe.

Film adaptations

  • The novel was first published in the USA in 1962 by the director Irwin Allen with the actors Peter Lorre , Red Buttons , Barbara Eden and Cedric Hardwicke as Dr. Fergusson made a film.
  • A colorful film adaptation of René Cardona Jr. was born in 1975 in Mexico under the title Viaje fantástico en globo (as DVD in the US under Fantastic Balloon Voyage , in Germany under Fantastic Voyage in a Balloon sold). The actors are Hugo Stiglitz as Professor Fergusson, Jeff Cooper as Kennedy, Jorge Zamora as Joe, Carmen Vicarte as Victoria, as well as Carlos Camacho, René Cardona, Carlos Houman, Silvestre Méndez, Antonio Orellana, Marcos Russek and others. The film was shot in Kenya and Mexico ( Tuxtepec and Valsequillo ).

literature

expenditure

French

German

  • Five weeks in the balloon . German by Martha Lion. A. Hartleben, Vienna / Pest / Leipzig 1875 (German first edition).
  • Five weeks in the realm of the skies . German by Walter Weilen. Fock, Leipzig 1887.
  • Five weeks in the balloon. Journey of discovery by three Englishmen in Africa, retold according to the notes of Dr. Fergusson . German by Paul Heichen. A. Weichert, Berlin 1901.
  • Five weeks in the balloon . German by Lothar Baier . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1968, ISBN 3-596-10002-X .
  • Five weeks in the balloon . German by Felix Gasbarra . Diogenes, Zurich 1976, ISBN 3-257-20241-5 .
  • Five weeks in the balloon . With illustrations from the original edition, Nikol, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86820-203-8 .

Secondary literature

  • Kathryn Brown: Balloon Travel, Objectivity and Empire in Jules Verne's Cinq semaines en ballon. In: Loïc Guyon, Andrew Watts (eds.): Aller (s) -Retour (s): Nineteenth-Century France in Motion . Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle 2013, pp. 96-110.
  • Philippe Burgaud: Cinq semaines en ballon en film. In: Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne . 184, 2013, pp. 30-37.
  • Volker Dehs : La bi (bli) ographie de Cinq semaines en ballon. In: Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne. 183, 2013, pp. 4-19.
  • Volker Dehs: Cinq semaines en ballon devant la critique de 1863. In: Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne. 183, 2013, pp. 30-39.
  • Reinhold R. Grimm: The “scientific novel” as a paradigm of the popular novel: On Jules Verne's Cinq semaines en ballon. In: Peter Brockmeier, Hermann H. Wetzel (Ed.): French literature in individual representations. Volume 2: From Stendhal to Zola . Metzler, Stuttgart 1982, pp. 171-207.
  • E. Weissenberg: Cinq semaines en ballon, un roman de commande? In: Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne. 156, 2005, pp. 49-55.

Web links

Commons : Five weeks in a balloon  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Cinq semaines en ballon  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Journey with obstacles to England and Scotland (accessed July 10, 2010)
  2. ↑ Volker Dehs: Jules Verne. A critical biography . Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-538-07208-6 , p. 135.
  3. ^ Entry in The Complete Jules Verne Bibliography. (accessed on July 10, 2010)
  4. ↑ Volker Dehs: Jules Verne. A critical biography . Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-538-07208-6 , p. 142.
  5. ↑ Volker Dehs: Jules Verne. A critical biography . Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-538-07208-6 , p. 118.