A Journey to the Center of the Earth

This volume contains two full-length novels, three critical essays, the illustrations from the 1874 edition, and annotations in endnotes. There are more than 17,000 words in these essays and annotations. In addition to the woodcuts that illustrated the 1874 edition is a reproduction of the title page.

The centerpiece is Jules Verne’s immortal classic, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, in its full and uncondensed version. The text has been modernized for present-day readers. Gary Gentile has annotated the text in endnotes, in which he defines words and phrases that are nowadays unfamiliar, and explains allusions that are no longer commonplace.

For comparison is Gary Gentile’s first science fiction novel: a previously unpublished pastiche that is seen here for the first time by the surface dwellers. This modern subterranean journey is nearly as long as Verne’s (76,000 words as opposed to 86,000 words), and incorporates imaginative concepts that go far beyond those of the master.

Three shorter journeys include an essay on “Hollow World Myths” and the origination of Jules Verne’s tale of descent. Next is “A Tribute to Jules Verne,” in which Gary Gentile pays homage to the prolific wordsmith of adventure tales, while at the same time pointing out the scientific fallacies and failures in logic that permeate Verne’s best-known novel. Last is a critique that compares the strengths and weaknesses of both novels.

Now is the best time to join the fictional but intrepid explorers as they descend beneath the Earth’s crust through a labyrinth of caves into the bowels of the planet, where they have many strange and fabulous adventures. They visit illuminated caverns, meet prehistoric creatures, encounter wild plants, and discover the progenitors of mankind.