Invasion of the Sea

1905 novel by Jules Verne

Invasion of the Sea

Author| Jules Verne
Original title| L'Invasion de la mer
Translator| Edward Baxter
Illustrator| Léon Benett
Language| French
Series| The Extraordinary Voyages No. 54
Genre| Adventure novel, Science fiction[1]
Publisher| Pierre-Jules Hetzel

Publication date

| 1905
Publication place| France

Published in English

| 2001
Media type| Print (hardback)
Preceded by| Master of the World

Invasion of the Sea (French: L'Invasion de la mer) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne. It was published in 1905, the last to be published in the author's lifetime, and describes the exploits of Berber nomads and European travelers in Saharan Africa.[2] The European characters arrive to study the feasibility of flooding a low-lying region of the Sahara desert to create an inland sea and open up the interior of Northern Africa to trade. In the end, however, the protagonists' pride in humanity's potential to control and reshape the world is humbled by a cataclysmic earthquake which results in the natural formation of just such a sea.[3]

## Plot summary

[edit]

Invasion of the Sea takes place in a future 1930s and follows the story of European engineers and their military escort who seek to revive an actual 19th century proposal to flood the Sahara desert with waters from the Mediterranean Sea to create an inland "Sahara Sea" for both commercial and military purposes.[4] The French military escort, led by Captain Hardigan, meet with conflict from Tuareg Berber tribes who fear the new sea will threaten their nomadic way of life. The Berber tribes, led by the warlord Hadjar, begin an insurgency campaign against the Europeans in an effort to derail their plans for the inland sea. Captain Hardigan attempts to retaliate against the Berbers and bring Hadjar to justice. Ultimately, however, a disastrous earthquake strikes. This earthquake floods the Sahara to an extent beyond even limits which were proposed by the Europeans, and drowns the insurgent Tuaregs.[2][5]

## Historical background

[edit]

The novel Invasion of the Sea, as well the plans of the characters in the novel, are inspired by the real-life exploits of Captain François Élie Roudaire. Roudaire was a French military officer and geographer who surveyed parts of Tunisia in the late 1800s. He discovered that large areas of the Sahara Desert were below sea level and proposed that a canal be dug from the Mediterranean Sea to these Saharan basins, which would allow for the creation of an inland "Sahara Sea".[6] Others had made similar proposals at the same time,[6] and canal building generally was a popular geopolitical endeavor of the first decade of the 1900s, when Invasion of the Sea was written.[4][5]

Some have noted that the inclusion of the Berber raiders (who are opposed to the efforts of the European engineers and military officers) is a foreshadowing of the growth of Islamic terrorism in the 1900s and 2000s.[2][5][7][8]

## Translation history

[edit]

Parts of the novel, under the title Captain Hardizan, were serialized in The American Weekly (the Sunday Supplement to the Boston newspaper) on August 6 and August 13, 1905, by Oswald Mathew. The first complete English translation was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2001 by Edward Baxter. It was slated to be the first in a series of early science fiction reprints from Wesleyan University Press. It contained many illustrations from the original French edition.[5]

The history of Invasion of the Sea was unusual in this regard. For years before the Baxter translation, Invasion of the Sea was one of four late Voyages Extraordinaires novels left unpublished in their whole form (the others being The Mighty Orinoco, The Kip Brothers, and Traveling Scholarships). Early translators of Verne for British and American readers in the late 1800s and early 1900s were notorious for making major changes to Verne's novels in the translation and editing process. Translators would, for example, change names and even character motivations at times. Other changes were aimed at removing the anti-imperialist themes which Verne was known to espouse in his work,[5] while others still were made by Verne's son.[2] No contemporary translation was as notorious for its revisionism as the Captain Hardizan edition of Invasion of the Sea, however. Mathew's translation changes were so dramatic that they changed the focus to a young European woman captured by an Arab raiding party. The Arabs themselves were described as being led by a different woman of supernatural abilities.[5]

## Contemporary reviews and criticism

[edit]

Reviews have differed in their opinions between different editions of Invasion of the Sea and its various English translations. While early English translations have been criticized for their unfaithfulness to the original French text, particularly in removing the anti-colonialist themes for British and American audiences,[5] modern translations have been praised for their much greater faithfulness to the source.[2][4][5]

The 2001 translation by Edward Baxter was viewed in a mostly positive light, and most criticisms were directed towards problems with the original work by Jules Verne. Publishers Weekly criticized the character development (with the exception of that of an affable dog named Ace-of-Hearts), while also describing the plot as both "disjointed" and "predictable", saying that the book is overwhelmed with a "deluge of scientific facts".[4] Brian Taves of the North American Jules Verne Society praised the use of multiple perspectives in the narrative (both French and North African) and the novel's political sophistication. He criticized the novel, however, for a general lack of excitement.[5] On the other hand, Harper's Magazine described the book as a "ripping good yarn".[9] A common theme in reviews was the novel's seeming prescience about the growing significance of Islamic terrorism.[5][7][8]

## Publication history

[edit]

* Invasion of the Sea, Trans. Edward Baxter, Ed. Arthur Evans. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, c2001. ISBN 0-8195-6545-8

## See also

[edit]

* Novels portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Invasion of the Sea.

* Qattara Depression Project
* Chott Melrhir

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Canavan, Gerry (2018). The Cambridge History of Science Fiction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-31-669437-4
2. ^ a b c d e "Invasion of the Sea". Kirkus Reviews. December 1, 2001. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
3. ^ Kytasaari, Dennis. "Plot Synopsis of Invasion of the Sea". North American Jules Verne Society. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
4. ^ a b c d "Plot Synopsis of Invasion of the Sea". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Taves, Brian. "Review of Invasion of the Sea". North American Jules Verne Society. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
6. ^ a b Spinage, Clive Alfred (2012). African Ecology: Benchmarks and Historical Perspectives. Springer Geography (Illustrated ed.). New York: Springer. ISBN 978-3642228711. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
7. ^ a b Adams, Susan (April 15, 2002). "Eerily Prescient". Forbes. Archived from the original on June 2, 2002. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
8. ^ a b Sterling, Bruce. "Wesleyan University Press list of endorsements". Wesleyan University Press. Archived from the original on March 30, 2013. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
9. ^ Harper's Magazine. "Wesleyan University Press list of reviews". Wesleyan University Press. Archived from the original on March 30, 2013. Retrieved December 16, 2012.

* v
* t
* e

Jules Verne (bibliography)

Voyages
extraordinaires|

* Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863)
* Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
* From the Earth to the Moon (1865)
* The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1866)
* In Search of the Castaways (1867–68)
* Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1869–70)
* Around the Moon (1870)
* A Floating City (1871)
* The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa (1872)
* The Fur Country (1873)
* Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)
* The Mysterious Island (1874–75)
* The Survivors of the Chancellor (1875)
* Michael Strogoff (1876)
* Off on a Comet (1877)
* The Child of the Cavern (1877)
* Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (1878)
* The Begum's Fortune (1879)
* Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (1879)
* The Steam House (1880)
* Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon (1881)
* Godfrey Morgan (1882)
* The Green Ray (1882)
* Kéraban the Inflexible (1883)
* The Vanished Diamond (1884)
* The Archipelago on Fire (1884)
* Mathias Sandorf (1885)
* The Lottery Ticket (1886)
* Robur the Conqueror (1886)
* North Against South (1887)
* The Flight to France (1887)
* Two Years' Vacation (1888)
* Family Without a Name (1889)
* The Purchase of the North Pole (1889)
* César Cascabel (1890)
* Mistress Branican (1891)
* The Carpathian Castle (1892)
* Claudius Bombarnac (1892)
* Foundling Mick (1893)
* Captain Antifer (1894)
* Propeller Island (1895)
* Facing the Flag (1896)
* Clovis Dardentor (1896)
* An Antarctic Mystery (1897)
* The Mighty Orinoco (1898)
* The Will of an Eccentric (1899)
* The Castaways of the Flag (1900)
* The Village in the Treetops (1901)
* The Sea Serpent (1901)
* The Kip Brothers (1902)
* Travel Scholarships (1903)
* A Drama in Livonia (1904)
* Master of the World (1904)
* Invasion of the Sea (1905)

Other works|

| Short
stories|

* "A Drama in Mexico" (1851)
* "A Drama in the Air" (1851)
* "Martin Paz" (1852)
* "Master Zacharius" (1854)
* "A Winter amid the Ice" (1855)
* "The Count of Chanteleine" (1864)
* "The Blockade Runners" (1865)
* "Dr. Ox's Experiment" (1872)
* "An Ideal City" (1875)
* "The Mutineers of the Bounty" (1879)
* "Frritt-Flacc" (1884)
* "Gil Braltar" (1887)
* "In the Year 2889" (1889)
* "The Eternal Adam" (1910)

|

Novels|

* The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1905)
* The Golden Volcano (1906)
* The Thompson Travel Agency (1907, by Michel Verne)
* The Chase of the Golden Meteor (1908)
* The Danube Pilot (1908)
* The Survivors of the "Jonathan" (1909)
* The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz (1910)
* The Barsac Mission (1919)
* Backwards to Britain (1989, written 1859)
* A Priest in 1839 (1992, written ca. 1847)
* Paris in the Twentieth Century (1994, written 1863)

* Doctor Ox (1874, short story collection)
* Journey Through the Impossible (1882, play)

Universe|

| Characters|

* Aouda
* Tom Ayrton
* David Farragut
* Phileas Fogg
* Lord Glenarvan
* Captain Nemo
* Jacques Paganel
* Jean Passepartout
* Cyrus Smith

|

* Nautilus
* HMS Sword

Related|

* Michel Verne (son)
* Jules Verne House [fr]
* Tomb
* Cultural influence of Jules Verne
* Jules Verne Museum
* Jules Verne Awards
* Jules Verne Trophy
* Jules Verne ATV
* Jules Verne lunar crater

* Category

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF

National|

* Germany
* France
* BnF data

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