by Jules Verne, 1870
The year 1868, the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine, is thought to be a narwhal. M. Aronnax, a French scientist and his servant, Conseil, end up on a boat aimed to kill it. They end up thrown into the Pacific Ocean and are picked up, along with Ned Land, the Canadian whaler-master harpooner, by Capt. Nemo and taken prisoner on the Nautilus. They spend the next 10 months with Capt. Nemo – treated very well, fed very well, taken along on many adventures: coral gardens, the South Pole, etc. Capt. Nemo bears a grudge against mankind. He destroys a ship at the end. M. Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land escape in the boat connected to the Nautilus while it is in the “Navel of the Ocean,” a dangerous whirlpool that forms off the coast of Norway. He doesn’t know if the Nautilus escaped or not. No ship ever has, but then again, no ship has ever existed like the Nautilus.
Fantastic book! He is considered the father of science fiction. With this book, he invented the submarine; none had existed before! What an imagination! 20,000 leagues doesn’t mean that deep-it’s how far he went with Capt. Nemo under the sea over 10 months.