Avenue Jules Verne

What if I told you that this very city, Paris, was once envisioned as a dystopian society? Right here, on Avenue Jules Verne, we are reminded of a writer who dared to dream of a future both thrilling and terrifying. This avenue is, of course, named after the famed author, Jules Verne. He was a visionary who captivated the world with tales of extraordinary voyages and technological marvels. But one of his most intriguing works, “Paris in the Twentieth Century,” offered a starkly different perspective on the City of Lights. Written in 1863 but not published until 1994, the novel presented a Paris of 1960 obsessed with business and technology, where art and literature were forgotten. Verne’s Paris was a world of gas-powered cars, towering skyscrapers, and even a network of computers that could send messages across vast distances. His predictions were eerily accurate in some ways, but his publisher at the time, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, found the novel too pessimistic. Hetzel feared it would harm Verne’s burgeoning career. So, the manuscript was shelved, hidden away for over a century. Imagine that! A glimpse into the future, locked away because it was deemed too bleak. While “Paris in the Twentieth Century” painted a rather dystopian picture, Verne’s legacy is far from bleak. His imaginative works continue to inspire us to dream of the extraordinary.