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 Childhood". Perec once commented: "When Jules Verne lists all the names of fish over four pages in "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas", I feel as though I am reading a poem." The Swiss traveler and writer Nicolas Bouvier cited Verne as his initiation into geography, and named Mathias Sandorf and Phileas Fogg among his childhood heroes. The British traveler and filmmaker Graham Hughes has similarly identified Fogg as one of his inspirations. According to scholarly hypothesis, J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by Verne during the writing of his Legendarium narratives. The Tolkien scholar Mark T. Hooker and the philosopher Roderick