Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

In 1866, ships of several nations spot a mysterious sea monster, which some suggest is a giant narwhal. The US government assembles an expedition to find and destroy the monster. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist (and narrator within the story) receives a last-minute invitation to join the expedition. As the expedition travels south around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean, the crew finds the monster after a long search and then attack it, but the ship is damaged with the three main protagonists thrown into the water. They are quickly captured and then meet the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne and was originally published in 1870. The novel was originally serialized between March 1869 and June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's periodical, the Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation. An illustrated edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth.