Return to the Centre of the Earth Leskanich. The story is narrated by Patrick Stewart. Recording was delayed after Wakeman was hospitalised with a life threatening case of double pneumonia and pleurisy, and needed time to recover. Upon release, the album reached number 34 on the UK Albums Chart. In 1974, Wakeman released his second solo album "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", a concept album based on the same-titled science fiction novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of Professor Lidenbrook, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans who follow a passage to the Earth's centre originally discovered by Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist.
Jules Verne his second novel for Hetzel, "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras" (1864–65). When "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras" was published in book form in 1866, Hetzel publicly announced his literary and educational ambitions for Verne's novels by saying in a preface that Verne's works would form a novel sequence called the "Voyages extraordinaires" ("Extraordinary Voyages" or "Extraordinary Journeys"), and that Verne's aim was "to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format that is his own, the history of the universe." Late in life, Verne confirmed that