20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
Jules Verne
HarperCollins is proud to present a range of best-loved, essential classics.'The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.'Scientist Pierre Aronnax and his colleagues set out on an expedition to find a strange sea monster and are captured by the infamous and charismatic Captain Nemo and taken abroad the Nautilus submarine as his prisoners. As they travel the world's oceans, they become embroiled in adventures and events beyond their wildest dreams. Visionary in its outlook, Vern's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a legendary science fiction masterpiece.
Collins Classics
History of Collins (#ulink_f2c86cba-c359-534d-8d0c-ccb1dacd8df6)
In 1819, Millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u523e9d73-4665-5d71-ae7e-8b954b403b2d)
Title Page (#u8908620d-527d-53b0-bff5-9d8f1b8df55a)
History of Collins (#uf2ec1926-cd32-5902-88dc-ef6ba02d1e4a)
CHAPTER 1 A Floating Reef (#u00aac68f-ad1d-545b-9828-041869d46e88)
CHAPTER 2 For and Against (#ua0abed09-0688-5d77-9c9d-556ab437d6d8)
CHAPTER 3 As Monsieur Pleases (#udf36e1f6-f44d-5e9f-9146-97d2b4f4bf39)
CHAPTER 4 Ned Land (#udb7a4432-d94e-5315-8829-8e296ca117e7)
CHAPTER 5 At Random (#u4c266f93-2f05-5bc0-a990-42671c4ed84a)
CHAPTER 6 With all Steam on (#ud791b303-c987-5d5a-9858-e6d004609b92)
CHAPTER 7 A Whale of an Unknown Species (#u80269678-12b1-5aee-9424-710942528907)
CHAPTER 8 Mobilis in Mobile (#u5c77e402-8bc0-5b99-b9ae-943aa4ed70b9)
CHAPTER 9 Ned Land’s Anger (#u427b90cf-5414-5ca3-a5e7-40e52d9e211d)
CHAPTER 10 Nemo (#u11b65829-91ea-5d28-9126-1ca3b505dad4)
CHAPTER 11 The ‘Nautilus’ (#uca40087c-d672-5031-90e0-c19157fe81c5)
CHAPTER 12 Everything by Electricity (#uef53ded2-4c2c-5c93-91c7-24351c294bd4)
CHAPTER 13 Figures (#uaa85f822-c171-5c36-b34f-87874eb230b9)
CHAPTER 14 The Black River (#u518be995-8206-5845-adf6-d0834db71549)
CHAPTER 15 A Written Invitation (#u9afcc28c-95ae-52dd-b81a-7226be662751)
CHAPTER 16 At the Bottom of the Sea (#u13a21aba-f26b-54a3-85fc-bfa78a83667c)
CHAPTER 17 A Submarine Forest (#u48df7db0-37cf-52ae-9ac2-cd677b7f7480)
CHAPTER 18 Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19 Vanikoro (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20 Torres Straits (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21 Some Days on Land (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22 Captain Nemo’s Thunderbolt (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23 Aegri Somnia (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24 The Coral Kingdom (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25 The Indian Ocean (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26 A Fresh Proposition of Captain Nemo’s (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27 A Pearl Worth Ten Millions (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28 The Red Sea (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29 The Arabian Tunnel (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 30 The Grecian Archipelago (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 31 The Mediterranean in Forty-Eight Hours (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 32 Vigo Bay (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 33 A Vanished Continent (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 34 Submarine Coalfields (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 35 The Sargasso Sea (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 36 Cachalots and Whales (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 37 The Ice-Bank (#litres_trial_promo)
