Whirlpool such violent tidal surges: Three of the most notable literary references to the Lofoten Maelstrom date from the nineteenth century. The first is the Edgar Allan Poe short story "A Descent into the Maelström" (1841). The second is "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1870), the famous novel by Jules Verne. At the end of this novel, Captain Nemo seems to commit suicide, sending his "Nautilus" submarine into the Maelstrom (although in Verne's sequel Nemo and the Nautilus were seen to have survived). The "Norway maelstrom" is also mentioned in Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick". In the 'Life of St Columba', the author,
Jules Verne Quai Jean-Bart, where Verne's brother Paul was born the same year. Three sisters, Anna (1836), Mathilde (1839), and Marie (1842) would follow. In 1834, at the age of six, Verne was sent to boarding school at 5 Place du Bouffay in Nantes. The teacher, Mme Sambin, was the widow of a naval captain who had disappeared some 30 years before. Mme Sambin often told the students that her husband was a shipwrecked castaway and that he would eventually return like Robinson Crusoe from his desert island paradise. The theme of the Robinsonade would stay with Verne throughout his life and