Talk:Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

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[edit] Question

Is this novel public domain?

Translations older than 1923 are PD. There is also a more recent translation on Project Gutenburg but I am not sure of the PD status of it, but it's certainly free to read. -- Stbalbach 12:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

Where should this go?

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea:

20,000 Leagues under the Sea:

Other (please specify):

The 1954 film is "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Amazon shows book editions variously with "20,000" and "Twenty thousand" (and a couple with "20000") but almost always singular "sea". I think I prefer a spelled-out title... maybe. Of course, the pedant I am, I'd prefer Vingt mille lieues sous les mers... --Brion

Well, we put the first Harry Potter book under its real (i.e., UK title) "philosopher's stone" vs. "sorcerer's stone". But for Verne's classic sub story, which surely served as inspiration for The Hunt for Red October I'd like to see something that does it justice. And there are too many redirect pages.

I vote for either "Twenty Thousand" or "20,000", with the alternate title redirecting to the main title. --Ed Poor

Mais on n'ecrit pas les titres (ou les articles) en français :-). I think that "20,000" and "sea" are preferable, former because it's shorter (I like shorter titles), the latter because it's the common English rendition. --Uri
Oui oui, mais quel dommage! Le titre original, ce devrait être disponible comme redirect je pense, mais bien sur pas comme le titre de l'article meme. "Sea" is definitely preferred in the English forms. I want to lean towards the full words "Twenty Thousand" on principle, but I think the "20,000" is more likely to crop up. --Brion
Bien sûr, on va laisser le nom original comme un redirect! Considering the fact that a certain part of the people on the Internet would have difficulty spelling out "twenty thousand", I do prefer the numerical title. As to the general case, I haven't made up my mind (although 1001 Arabian Nights looks better to me than A Thousand an One Arabic Nights. Then of course there's "Alf Layla wa-Layla"/ألف ليلة وليلة). --Uri

[edit] On measuring units

"and this distance is a measure of length, not depth" -feet are more usual for depth, I believe- but as it is written this funny to me any measure of length is of course valid in the three dimensions or maybe I've been transferred to some parallel world ?

  • There is no way that 20,000 leagues (or even miles) can refer to the *depth* the Nautilus goes to. It refers to the distance the craft travels while submerged. I believe Verne clears this up in the book wherer a character remarks that he has been travellign 20,000 legues while on the vessel. The Land 19:44, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


20,000 leagues does refer to distance travelled and not depth.

  • In Project Gutenberg's version, In Chapter 18 of part II Sargasso Sea, paragraph 21, the text reads "By then we had fared nearly 13,000 leagues from our starting point in the Pacific high seas."
  • In paragraph 38, the text reads, "We reached a depth of 16,000 meters -- four vertical leagues." As far as I can tell, that is the deepest they go in the book. User: maurelius 23:25, 21 May 2005.
That's correct. Also, "League" ("Lieues") were oldish measuring units by that time already; I suspect that they are used because they resonate with old childrens tales ("les Bottes de sept Lieues" for instance). A likely traditional depth measure unit would be "brasse" (not foot "pied"). Rama 08:36, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization

In case someone should wonder: I re-entered the category link just to test whether this would make the novel be sorted correctly (i.e. under T) on the category page. And it worked. As for why it didn't the first time around, I have no clue. --Wernher 23:20, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Can someone add a list of his works? Phaust 08:04, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That would go on Jules Verne, wouldn't it ? Rama 12:15, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Something to add

It would be good if we could explain some of the obscure 19th century science that's so much a part of the novel.--Pharos 10:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

What do you have in mind ? The science itself does not strike me as that obscure -- it is good old classical physics... but it is true that there are lots of allusions to systems of the time (like the underwater breathing systems, riffles, navigation instruments...) which could be very funny to hunt for :) Rama 10:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

What about some of the marine biology references, like Professor Arronax's claim that sharks must roll over onto their bellies before they can bite, or that Sperm Whales will eat Baleen Whales. Or the explanation that the world is growing colder, and volcanoes growing less active? It would be cool if there could be a discussion of the various scientific points in the book and how accurate they are and where they came from.Annabg 20:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

The article mentions "The story was written before modern sea-going submarines were a reality..." however near the end it adds, "Verne borrowed the name "Nautilus" from one of the earliest successful submarines, built in 1800 by Robert Fulton".

I realize it says "modern" sea-going submarines but isn't that a given? Since submarines did exist in some form, shouldn't the first sentence be dropped? Verne didn't invent the concept of a submarine.

I believe the term "sea-going" is relevant. The original nautilus could dive several metres and sink ships, but it was not an ocean-going vessel and could not travel any appreciable distance. The concept of an underwater ship is original.Thebunsk 05:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] explanation necessary

Please explain what "purists prefer 20,000 Miles Under the Sea" is supposed to mean here; one would expect the opposite, that purists prefer a title closer to the original:

The word leagues in the English title is a literal translation of lieues, but purists prefer 20,000 Miles Under the Sea whereas twenty thousand lieues marine are 60,000 nautical miles. Using the metric System with SI-units Jules Verne's book would be titled "111,120 km Under the Seas" today.

--Espoo 07:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I have tried to fix this. -- dwxyzq|T 21:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] water pressure

I have removed this paragraph:

Whether because he was unaware of the phenomenon, or simply chose to exclude it from his narrative, the fictional universe of Verne's novel does not feature water pressure increasing with depth, as it does in the real world . His "Nautilus" has no limitation in the depths it can reach, and in one episode it sets down on the very deepest bottom of the Atlantic, at which point Captain Nemo and Professor Aronnax emerge, wearing diving suits, and walk for miles along the sea bottom to view the ruins of Atlantis. In reality, of course, the overwhelming water pressure at that depth would crush an unprotected human.


based on the following:

  1. unaware of the phenomenon? from chapter 4: "Precisely, Ned. So at thirty–two feet beneath the surface of the sea, you'll undergo a pressure of 17,568 kilograms; at 320 feet, or ten times greater pressure, it's 175,680 kilograms; at 3,200 feet, or 100 times greater pressure, it's 1,756,800 kilograms; finally, at 32,000 feet, or 1,000 times greater pressure, it's 17,568,000 kilograms; in other words, you'd be squashed as flat as if you'd just been yanked from between the plates of a hydraulic press!" Verne seems quite aware of it.
  2. The nautilus goes to a depth of 16000m whereby Nemo says"Let's go back up, professor. We mustn't push our luck and expose the Nautilus too long to these pressures." (ch11) This shows the nautilus had limitations.
  3. They set the nautilus down at 300m for the walk to atlantis and spend their time climbing upwards (ch9); today scuba divers have been able to reach this range from the surface so this can not be a depth that would crush an unprotected human.

This makes me honestly wonder if I have read the same book as the author of this paragraph, or if this is some kind of insidious vandalism?


with that said something should probably be written showing how good of a grasp Verne had on the power of water pressure; although I do not know if his awareness of it is actually anything noteworthy? -- dwxyzq|T 21:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Supposed Spanish first edition

When I was looking up info for the infobox on alibris.com, I ran across this: [1] Is this valid, if anyone has any idea please leave a message on my talkpage -- Gizzakk 17:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Film adaptations

This section contains the statement, "It was the first live-action film of Walt Disney Pictures." This is not correct. As two instances of earlier live-action films, Disney released Treasure Island in 1950 and The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men in 1952 (see IMDb.com or references on this website). The author perhaps meant Disney's first live-action film made in the U.S.? Orzel-W 19:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tentacled attackers

Every english translation I've found gives the species of the cephalopods that attack the Nautilis as being cuttlefish, and not squid. While reading the original text to check out the recent edit that put "kraken" into the synopsis, I found that the French word used is calmar, or squid, rather than seiche "cuttlefish". Does anyone know anything about the history of this replacement? Also, barring any further knowledge of the translation, which word (squid, keeping with the original sense, or cuttlefish, keeping with the translations) would be in keeping with Wikipedia's style? Ross Hatton 15:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Top Importance?

How on earth did this get to be one of sixteen books in the "top-importance novels" category? Dybryd 07:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

where would you rate it then - also bear in mind that few novels have been rated as yet. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 07:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
According to the UNESCO Index Translationum [2], Verne is the world's third most translated author. "20,000" is arguably his most famous work ("80-Days" is probably more popular but only in English speaking countries). I'm not sure what objective criteria are being used to rank books (sounds like original research territory) but it is an important work. -- Stbalbach 14:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
The main work by the author who is considered to be by many as non less of than the Sci-F genre founder. No doubt it deserves its place on the list. Even if it's not that great from a literary point of view and it hasn't got a main place within literary studies (in fact the whole genre hasn't), its influence is so huge inside and outside literature that it belongs to the list. The fact that there are so few articles on this category is a different issue. Not enough works were rated yet.--Rataube 17:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another piece of trivia

Oceanopolis, a large sea-life centre on the outskirts of Brest, quotes liberally from "20,000", roughly once per (large) fish-tank. Captain Pedant 20:15, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New page on Arronax?

While a web page on Wikipedia exists about Captain Nemo, we need someone to create a page on the other main character, Aronnax. It seems his role is no lesser, though no page exists about him. Michael Viveiros 23:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

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