- Verne, Jules. Voyage au centre de
la terre. Paris: Gallimard, [1864]
1998. ISBN 2-07-051437-4.
- A free electronic edition of this
text is available from Project Gutenberg. This classic adventure
is endlessly adaptable: you may prefer a translation in English, German, or Spanish. The 1959 movie with James Mason and Pat
Boone is a fine flick but substantially departs from Verne's story
in many ways: of the three principal characters in the novel, two are
rather unsympathetic and the third taciturn in the extreme—while Verne
was just having his usual fun with Teutonic and Nordic stereotypes,
one can see that this wouldn't work for Hollywood. Rick Wakeman's musical edition is, however, remarkably
faithful to the original.
April 2004 