Book of a lifetime: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

From The Independent archive: Margaret Drabble voyages beneath the waves, following Verne to the centre of the Earth, the north pole, down into caves, only to find the best treasure waiting for her on a mysterious island

Captain Nemo depicted on top of the Nautilus, 1836 (Wikimedia Commons)

One of the books I have read and re-read with unfailing pleasure and interest is Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I can date my first reading precisely, as I still have my copy, given to me by “Mummy and Daddy, Christmas 1948”, when I was nine. This edition was published in 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio, and has beautiful illustrations of sea creatures and seascapes, and of the brave adventurers who travel with Captain Nemo in his spacious submarine, the Nautilus. As a child, I liked the pictures of the narwhal and the kelp forest best, but now I also admire the narrator and his manservant Conseil, portrayed in handsome nakedness. Illustrated books were a rarity in that post-war period, and all the more to be cherished.

I loved the underwater world, and would have been a marine biologist if I’d had any scientific encouragement at school. The flying fish and sharks and giant squid of Verne’s novel entranced me. I was in love with Captain Nemo, the brooding cultured misanthrope of the deeps, who combined the romantic qualities of Heathcliff and Byron with the ruthlessness of Macbeth. (James Mason played him to perfection in the excellent movie, and Kirk Douglas was brilliant as the champion harpooner, Ned Land.) What drove Nemo restlessly round the oceans of the world, with his great library, his art treasures, and his grand piano? I longed to know.

A page from one of the two manuscripts of Jules Verne’s ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ (AFP/Getty)