Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with "Around the World in Eighty Days" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth". The description of Nemo's ship, the "Nautilus", was considered ahead of its time, as it accurately describes features on submarines, which at the time were very primitive vessels. A model of the French submarine "Plongeur" (launched in 1863) was displayed at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, where it was studied by Jules Verne, who used it as an inspiration for the novel. The title refers to the "distance traveled" while under the sea and
Cultural influence of Jules Verne Cultural influence of Jules Verne Jules Verne (1828–1905), the French writer best known for his "Voyages extraordinaires" series, has had a wide influence in both scientific and literary fields. The pioneering submarine designer Simon Lake credited his inspiration to "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", and his autobiography begins "Jules Verne was in a sense the director-general of my life." William Beebe, Sir Ernest Shackleton, and Robert Ballard found similar early inspiration in the novel, and Jacques Cousteau called it his "shipboard bible". The aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont named Verne as his favorite author and the inspiration for his own