REVIEWS

摘要

In 1989, a direct descendant of the famous 19th-century novelist Jules Verne commissioned a locksmith to force open an old family safe. Jean Jules-Verne had been obsessed with his ancestor's safe since childhood: 'Everyone thought it was empty, but in my imagination it was full of precious stones, gold and fabulous jewels and strange objects given to or collected by my great-grandfather.' It didn't, of course, contain a cache of gems and curios. But, among other literary fragments, it did contain a manuscript for an unpublished novel drafted in 1863: Paris in the Twentieth Century.