Jules Verne (1828–1905) was born in Nantes, France. After training for the law, he chose instead to write plays and later novels, signing a contract with the publisher Jules Hetzel to produce two novels a year. He pioneered the use of scientific and geographical research to write global and sometimes interstellar adventure novels, most of them gathered under the general series heading of Extraordinary Voyages. He wrote over 60 books, including several works of nonfiction, a number of short stories, and several plays.
