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 in repartee than in business". In July 1858, Verne and Aristide Hignard seized an opportunity offered by Hignard's brother: a sea voyage, at no charge, from Bordeaux to Liverpool and Scotland. The journey, Verne's first trip outside France, deeply impressed him, and upon his return to Paris he fictionalized his recollections to form the backbone of a semi-autobiographical novel, "Backwards to Britain" (written in the autumn and winter of 1859–1860 and not published until 1989). A second complementary voyage in 1861 took Hignard and Verne to Stockholm, from where they traveled to Christiania and through Telemark. Verne left Hignard in