The Sea Raiders sea monsters include Scylla and Charybdis of Greek mythology, and the kraken of medieval times which is thought to have been a giant squid. Previous fictional encounters with giant squids are described in chapter 59 of Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" of 1851, and in Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" of 1870. The narrator describes a recent period when a new sort of giant squid, a species named "Haploteuthis ferox", became known. (This fictitious name can be compared with the genus name "Architeuthis" of the giant squid.) As a part of the survey of the period, including early encounters
Journey Through the Impossible "The Children of Captain Grant" and "Michael Strogoff", as similarly spectacular plays. Verne began playing with the idea of bringing a mixed selection of "Voyages Extraordinaires" characters together on a new adventure in early 1875, when he considered writing a novel in which Samuel Fergusson from "Five Weeks in a Balloon", Pierre Aronnax from "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", Phileas Fogg from "Around the World in Eighty Days", Dr. Clawbonny from "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras", and other characters would go around the world together in a heavier-than-air flying machine. Another novel featuring a similar trip around the world