In &quot;Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas&quot;, Jules Verne created a character, Captain Nemo, who would continue to haunt the imagination of generations to come in the manner of Homer&rsquo;s hero, from whom Nemo took his name. In the &quot;Odyssey&quot; (c. 725 b.c.e.; English translation, 1614), Ulysses calls himself Nemo, or &ldquo;No one,&rdquo; in order to hide his identity from the Cyclops. Verne&rsquo;s unknown renegade, making war on injustice, has likewise become a myth.<br /><br />The best known of Verne&rsquo;s works was also the one that took the longest to find its way into print. It is certain that the author was working on a story tentatively titled &ldquo;Voyage Under the Waters&rdquo; in 1865. After his exploration of the air in &quot;Five Weeks in a Balloon&quot; and his &quot;Journey to the Centre of the Earth&quot;, it was logical that Verne would pursue his pedagogical mission by exploring the bottom of the sea.<br /><br />The novel focuses on a group of scientists embarking on a dangerous voyage in a submarine piloted by the eccentric Captain Nemo in search of a giant monster. As the journey wears on, the crew encounters dangerous life forms, but the biggest threat to their safety may be their increasingly mad captain...<br /><br />Considered one of the greatest science-fiction novels ever written, &quot;Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas&quot; explores themes of culture, class, grief, and the preservation of the environment. It is considered one of the forerunners of the ecology movement and displays a great respect for the life of the sea.<br /><br />&quot;Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas&quot; was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel&#39;s fortnightly periodical, the <i>Magasin d&#39;&eacute;ducation et de r&eacute;cr&eacute;ation</i>.