The Waif of the Cynthia

Captain Nemo, the Nautilus and a voyage through every ocean on the planet, told by a naturalist who is half prisoner and half guest. The most famous thing Verne wrote and still the best place to start.

Jules Verne

Five castaways land on an empty Pacific island with nothing and rebuild an entire civilisation from chemistry and first principles. It also closes the story of Captain Nemo, which makes it the payoff to two earlier novels.

Jules Verne

A message in a bottle sends a rescue party the whole way around the thirty seventh parallel, across South America, Australia and New Zealand. The first book of the trilogy that ends with The Mysterious Island.

Jules Verne

A fifteen year old apprentice inherits command of a whaling ship after the crew is lost, then discovers the course he has been given is a lie. A coming of age story that turns into a hard look at the slave trade.

Jules Verne

A passenger keeps a diary as the ship under him catches fire, floods and slowly falls apart. The bleakest thing Verne ever published, and the one where the science fiction gives way to pure survival.

Jules Verne