Michel Verne

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Michel Jean Pierre Verne

Michel Jean Pierre Verne (born August 3, 1861 in Paris , † March 5, 1925 in Toulon ) was a French writer .

youth

Michel Verne was born to Jules Verne and Honorine Anne Hébe du Fraysse de Viane . The relationship with his parents was difficult: in his childhood he was sickly, his parents hopelessly overwhelmed with his upbringing by puberty at the latest . In 1876 they put him in the reformatory in Mettray for eight months , where 700 young people were educated according to military drill . Michel hated his father for it. After his release from the reformatory, Jules Verne tried in vain to reintegrate his son into the family. The situation escalated so that sixteen-year-old Michel was sent to sea as a cabin boy . His uncle Paul Verne arranged a corresponding wage on the sailor Assomption , who was preparing for a trip to India. By order of his father, Michel was put in Nantes prison for the time until the ship left . During the voyage by ship, during which he rebelled against his superiors and was punished, he first examined the works of his father, from which he had taken a collection. After his return he accompanied his father in 1879 on his second cruise on the yacht Saint-Michel , which sailed along the English and Scottish coasts. But the conflict with the father escalated again. Jules Verne wanted to separate from his son and send him to Paris with a modest pension. But Michel refused. Instead, he behaved scandalously by the bourgeois standards of the time: he fell in love with the four years older singer Clémence-Thérese Taton , who performed in the theater of Amiens under her mother's maiden name, Thérèse Valgalier . His father was appalled by this connection and initially refused to consent to a marriage. In 1884 Jules Verne gave in to his son's insistence and allowed him to marry her. The wedding took place on March 15 of the same year. Six months later, Michel began an affair with the underage pianist Jeanne Reboul . With the claim that she was pregnant by him, he left his wife and went to Paris with his new love. Although a divorce law was passed that same year, Michel and Clémence-Thérese did not divorce until 1889. Shortly afterwards he married Jeanne Reboul, with whom he now had two children. There should be three children in total:

  • Michel Verne (* 1885 - † around 1960)
  • George Verne (* 1886; † 1911)
  • Jean Jules Verne (* 1892; † 1980)

When Gaston Verne, a nephew of Jules Verne, committed an attempted murder on March 9, 1886, it was a consequence of the fact that father and son grew closer. But it was not until 1893 that a final reconciliation came about.

First works

Jules Verne slowly became aware of his son's talents. He sent a collection of poems that Michel had written to his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814–1886). Since he died shortly afterwards, there was no publication. In 1887 a waltz composed by Michel with the title "En mer" was performed. In 1889 one of the poems, "Les Fossoyeurs du Gange" was published in the journal "La Nouvelle Revue". In 1888 Jules Verne gave his son a job as a freelancer at " Le Figaro ", for which he wrote a series of short articles that dealt with scientific topics in a humorous way. Some of these works were reprinted several times, some of them also appeared abroad. There were always confusions, so that it was not uncommon for the name of his father to appear underneath.

Attempts by Michel to establish himself as a businessman failed. Bankrupt and unemployed, he lived only on the pension that his father paid him every month. To get him to work, his father suggested that he write a novel. To make Michel's work easier, he offered him a scenario that he himself processed in a similar form to the novel Clovis Dardentor (1896). Michel wrote the novel of two rival travel agencies, Das Reisebüro Thompson & Co. , which was included in " Voyages extraordinaires " in 1907 under the name of his father . Some small jobs followed.

Jules Verne's estate

In 1905, with the death of his father, he also inherited his literary estate , including a number of unpublished and unfinished novels. With the announcement that he would withhold his father's still existing work and not publish it, Michel fought for higher royalties , which relieved him of all financial worries over the next few years. Early on there were doubts whether Jules Verne's posthumous works had actually been written by Jules Verne. However, Michel was able to point out that he had worked closely with his father in the previous years and therefore knew how the unfinished novels should be processed in his sense. Comparisons between published versions and the father's manuscripts show, in some cases, strong discrepancies. However, many of the manuscripts left behind would have been edited by Jules Verne himself. Some of the changes were made at the request of the publisher Louis-Jules Hetzel (1847–1930), the son of the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Louis-Jules Hetzel was the late work of Jules Verne in parts too tough and lacking in action.

Between 1910 and 1913 Michel Verne wrote the last novel together with his friend André Maurel, which supposedly goes back to an idea of ​​his father, but is essentially a work by Michel. This declared the edition of his father's works complete, although some early manuscripts were still available.

After the sale of the publishing house to the competitor "Hachette" and the First World War , sales of Jules Verne's works collapsed. From 1914 Michel became increasingly involved in film adaptations of his father's works, most of which are now lost.

death

On March 5, 1925, Michel died of cancer of the larynx and stomach .

Works

  • 1888: Zigzags à travers la science
  • 1888: Un express de l'avenir - an express train of the future
  • 1889: La Journée d'un journaliste américain en 2889 - A day in the life of an American journalist in 2889.
  • 1895: La Traversée de la Manche en 1895.

Current German-language book editions

  • Mr. Dis and Miss Es. In: Anne Marie Frölich (ed.), Christmas time - texts from world literature. Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-7175-1876-3 , pp. 333-380.
  • A day in the life of a journalist in 2889. In: Jules Verne: Master stories . Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-257-22416-8 .
  • Eternal Adam. In: Jules Verne: Master Tales. Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-257-22416-8 .
  • The amazing adventure of the Barsac expedition . Illustrations from the original French edition. Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-257-21237-2 .
  • The lighthouse at the end of the world. Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8424-1117-3 .
  • The humbug. Four stories by Jules & Michel Verne . Illustrations from the original French edition. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-943275-00-1 .
  • The world of the Messieurs Verne. Fun chats, stories and poems by Jules & Michel Verne . Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-943275-30-8 .

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Verne, Michel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Verne, Michel Jean Pierre (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1925
Place of death Toulon