Jules Verne magazine. (The manuscript, believed lost for some time after Verne's death, was finally published in 1994.) The relationship between publisher and writer changed significantly around 1869, when Verne and Hetzel were brought into conflict over the manuscript for "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Verne had initially conceived of the submariner Captain Nemo as a Polish scientist whose acts of vengeance were directed against the Russians who had killed his family during the January uprising. Hetzel, not wanting to alienate the lucrative Russian market for Verne's books, demanded that Nemo be made an enemy of the slave trade, a situation
Jules Verne George Sand and Théophile Gautier among his earliest admirers. Several notable contemporary figures, from the geographer Vivien de Saint-Martin to the critic Jules Claretie, spoke highly of Verne and his works in critical and biographical notes. However, Verne's growing popularity among readers and playgoers (due especially to the highly successful stage version of "Around the World in Eighty Days") led to a gradual change in his literary reputation. As the novels and stage productions continued to sell, many contemporary critics felt that Verne's status as a commercially popular author meant he could only be seen as a mere genre-based storyteller,