Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea the book from the initial concept is a portrait of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish national hero, leader of the uprising against Russia in 1794, with an inscription in Latin: "Finis Poloniae!" ("The end of Poland!"). Margaret Drabble argues that "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" anticipated the ecology movement and shaped the French avant-garde. Theodore L. Thomas in 1961 said that "there is not a single bit of valid speculation" in the novel and that "none of its predictions has come true". He described the depictions of the diving gear, scenes, and the "Nautilus" as "pretty bad, behind the times
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea title; the French title actually means "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas"). In the Argyle Press/Hurst and Company 1892 Arlington Edition, the translation and editing mistakes attributed to Mercier are missing. Scaphandre is correctly translated as "diving apparatus" and not as "cork-jackets". Although the book cover gives the title as "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", the title page titles the book "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas; Or, The Marvelous and Exciting Adventures of Pierre Arronax, Conseil His Servant, and Ned Land a Canadian Harpooner". A modern translation was produced in 1966 by Walter James Miller and published by