Voyage to the Center of the Earth by Jacques Collin de Plancy


Voyage to the Center of the Earth
Title : Voyage to the Center of the Earth
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1612274870
ISBN-10 : 9781612274874
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 252
Publication : Published March 1, 2016

Forty-three years before Jules Verne, and ninety-three years before Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jacques Collin de Plancy, remembered today for his Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology, penned Voyage to the Center of the Earth (1821), which is both an adventure story and a utopian fantasy in the Voltairean tradition. An expedition is mounted to discover the hypothetical opening at the Earth's pole, the existence of which was popularized by Tyssot de Patot's Pierre de Mésange (1720), Ludwig Holberg's Nils Klim (1741) and Casanova's Icosameron (1788). There, they discover an alien world located inside the Earth populated by humans who only differ from us by size. Although there are satirical elements, this world within is treated as another planet, with its own geography and history, a mildly exotic fauna and flora, and nations with different politics and religions. Voyage to the Center of the Earth differs from its predecessors not merely because of its careful depiction of a society that has preserved happiness by rejecting progress, but because its heroes find it is too tedious to remain there.

Voyage to the Center of the Earth Reviews

  • Steve Joyce

    Everyone has heard variations of the old line... "I don't know how to define science fiction but I know it when I see it"

    For me, there are two broad categorizations of science fiction. I don't exactly know how to define them but, again, I know them when I see them.

    The 1st one: adventure. Star Wars. simple fun. Doctor Who. Pop Culture. Escapism. Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. film serials. makes you enjoy popcorn more.

    The 2nd one: something to say. philosophical. extrapolation. H.G. Wells' Things to Come. Artsy. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Orwell. Brave New World. makes you think.

    The funny thing is that this novel strikes a pretty much 50-50 balance between the two. The first part of the book is hair-raising action. The later parts more akin to Gulliver's Travels perhaps.

    All in All: definitely worthwhile.