By any name, it represents the first successful attempt to incorporate science into literature.
Verne's personal reputation and literary status from his earliest work to the present day make a fascinating and bewildering saga. He has been acclaimed by some of the greatest writers of France, such as George Sand, Alexandre Dumas père, Théophile Gautier, Stéphane Mallarmé, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Blaise Cendrars, Raymond Roussel, Michel Foucault, and Michel Butor, yet he was denied admission into the Académie Française, and his works remained for nearly a century taboo in the French classroom (the publishers of the prestigious Pléiade editions--in some respects the litmus test of literary respectability in France--continue to refuse to publish the collected works of Verne). Record-breaking sales of his early works suddenly made Verne an international celebrity, yet his later masterpieces were left unsold and unwanted. He was idolized by several generations, yet he led a life of self-imposed solitude and secrecy. And, although beloved of Hollywood movie moguls and Disneyland tourists, Verne continues to be thoroughly unknown as a historian, a geographer, a social critic, and an early environmentalist.
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