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.
Cultural influence of Jules Verne counted Verne as a main influence on his own fiction as well as on literature and science the world over, saying "We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne." Other literary figures known to have been influenced by Verne include Paul Claudel, François Mauriac, Blaise Cendrars, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel Aymé, René Barjavel, Claude Roy, Michel Butor, and Roland Barthes. Verne is also often cited as a major influence of the science fiction genre steampunk, though Verne's works themselves are not of the genre. Cultural influence of Jules Verne Jules Verne (1828–1905), the French writer best