Journey to the Centre of the Earth Oxford World's Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Jules Verne, William Butcher: Books

Frequently Bought Together

+

+

Around the World in Eighty Days (Penguin Popular Classics)

Price For All Three: �10.79

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

This item: Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Oxford World's Classics) by Jules Verne
Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
20,000 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
Eligible for FREE UK delivery on orders over �5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
Around the World in Eighty Days (Penguin Popular Classics) by Jules Verne
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
Eligible for FREE UK delivery on orders over �5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

20,000 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

by Jules Verne

4.1 out of 5 stars (21) �2.25

Around the World in Eighty Days (Penguin Popular Classics)

by Jules Verne

4.1 out of 5 stars (8) �2.25

Moby Dick (Wordsworth Classics)

by Herman Melville

3.7 out of 5 stars (94) �1.99

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Penguin Popular Classics)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

4.5 out of 5 stars (15) �2.25

Robinson Crusoe (Penguin Popular Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

3.8 out of 5 stars (9) �2.25

› Explore similar items

Product Description

The Modern Language Review
'extremely useful'

Review
a virtuoso exegete (French Studies )

extremely useful (The Modern Language Review )

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
ON 24 May 1863, a Sunday, my uncle, Professor Lidenbrock, came rushing back towards his little house at No.19 Konigstrasse, one of the oldest streets in the historic part of Hamburg. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)

modern verne translations

jules verne

Customer Reviews

42 Reviews

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (42 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Verne's most thrilling novel, 30 Nov 2002

By	Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Mass Market Paperback)

This book proves Verne's greatness as a writer of fiction. The science in this science fiction flies largely in the face of modern science, yet the read is no less gripping today than it was in its infancy. The story is pretty simple. Professor Lidenbrock, a neurotically impatient scientist, discovers a cryptic manuscript written by a long-dead explorer; with the help of his nephew, he decodes the cryptogram to read an account of a journey to the center of the earth begun beneath a dormant volcano in Iceland. The nephew, Axel, a talented geologist and mineralogist himself, refuses to believe that the core of the earth is not exceedingly hot; additionally, he cares more about Grauben, the eccentric professor's ward, than risking his life on a scientific adventure. He proves unable to dissuade his uncle and thus joins with him on a journey to Iceland. There, they hire a stoic Icelander to lead them down into the earth. Most of the action takes place underground, with the adventurers suffering several trials, daring risks, and finally discovering a whole new world hidden miles below the earth's crust. The ultimate trial and danger they face consists of returning to the surface.

Axel narrates the story, and the strength of the novel lies in his character. The professor and the Icelandic guide are unusual personalities, but Axel is very real and easy to relate to. He really does not want to go in the first place, and he is most liable to greet dangers and risks by bemoaning his fate and declaring his party done for in their foolish efforts. It is he who suffers the most privation when the men's water runs out, and it is he who finds himself lost in the utter blackness of the caverns for three days. When things are going well, though, Axel becomes wildly excited about the mission and temporarily forgets about his fears. This all goes to make him a very sympathetic character. Without him, the story would be a rather dispassionate account of an impossible journey by bland, unbelievable characters. You do have to shift your mind into low gear a few times when the characters begin speaking about the different types of minerals and rocks they are encountering, but overall the plot is rather thrilling, and you cannot help but begin early on trying to ascertain a way in which the intrepid explorers can return to share their discoveries with a skeptical scientific community. Verne knows how to tell a story, and you don't have to know a single thing about science to enjoy this novel immensely.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars short but not sweet, 6 Jul 2008

By	Mehajabeen Farid "Mej_da_reviewer" (Coventry) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Fast Track Classics) (Paperback)

Axel Lindenbrock's uncle, Professor Otto Lindenbrock, has found a piece of paper written in Old Icelandic. Axel shortly manages to make sense of it, and it leads him and his uncle to Iceland to an extinct volcano called Sneffells. There, they go down into its crater with the help of an escort named Hans Bjelke, in hope to get to the centre of the earth! They will face hunger, thirst, and tiredness, but odd Professor Lindenbrock will not give up until he is at the earth's core...or until he is dead!

This is not the whole story but only a shortened version that takes only about 40 minutes to read if you do not want to read the whole story or you want to tell a friend about the book.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Down to earth, yet not, 31 Dec 2004

By	the great amphibian "Ruthenphelphs" (Hampshire, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Penguin Popular Classics) (Paperback)

There are some scenes that stay in my memory from this book. One of these is when the adventuring trio raft across an underground ocean and have to stay on a raft in the midst of a fight between giant nemesis sea 'dinosaurs'. Another is when the narrator thinks that he has lost his companions and his torch breaks so he is left in the dark miles underground thinking that he is forever lost. I truly felt the fear of being lost to its extreme when reading this. He does manage to find the professor and Hans, but the means are about as crazy as so much in this book, (which is a quaint thing about the book). I think Jules Vernes does the "dare to be bad" thing with the unlikely things that happen, but he might have taken this too far and actually ended up by being a little bit bad because of these totally impossible and unbelievable things that happen or things which the travellers survive for a happy ending, (such as being ejected up from miles underground through the vent of a volcano and surviving). This is probably the most enjoyable and visual adventure story that I have read, and actually, although the things that happen are hard to believe, this is slightly in dream territory, and Vernes clearly had an appreciation for geology and things. I did an A-level in geology, and every time that I was going to object to one of his suggestions he would then justify it. (One of these was that I objected that under the earth it would be far too hot to survive, but Verne justifies this by saying that the protagonists go underground in a tunnel made of granite and hence the temperature gradient doesn't effect them much. At least he know which parts to justify. This must be one of the earliest science fiction books, and is sort of geological science fiction. Also, one thing that I falsely objected to is that going to the centre of the Earth is a totally ridiculous idea for a science fiction story because it is so far-fetched, but in the story the adventurers only actually stay within the Earth's crust, which although deep, is only a tiny distance in geological terms. This made things a lot more realistic. Also the exciting atmosphere of Iceland prior to their 'breach' of Earth's crust stays in my memory. If you like the sound of it, read this book.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 42 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of fun and not to be taken seriously
This is a really fun read, even the really sciency bits are funny because they are unbelievable, for example the main character spends a page talking about how much he loves... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Lady Cordelia

5.0 out of 5 stars Journey to the Centre of the Earth

My daughter who is nine, asked me to buy this book for her and she read it within a week.

She had to complete a book review for school. Read more

Published 3 months ago

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, but little more than a travel guide
okay, yuo may have guessed from the title of this reveiw, it is a little more than a travel guide, the appriopritae title would be "a guide to the centre of the earth", if you are... Read more

Published 3 months ago by reader

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping stuff
This is a re-read. It is a very good adventure, one of his best, maintaining a real sense of threat and suffocating claustrophobia under the ground. Read more

Published 9 months ago by John Hopper

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, Wrong description!
The book is fantastic, and if a real review is wanted, then read one of the other ones. I'm just here to say that the book is not hardcover as it states in the product... Read more

Published 12 months ago by M. Dasani

4.0 out of 5 stars Deserved classic- science fiction with character
As well as being the gripping high-adventure story that other reviewers have written about, when I re-read this novel recently I was struck by another side to the story that I... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Mr. Stuart Bruce

4.0 out of 5 stars 4 stars
Verne captures real drama and human response in this fictitious masterpiece.It's a book for those who like the somewhat sureal adventure story. Read more

Published on 5 Jul 2007 by S. Hayes

4.0 out of 5 stars Believable adventure
An excellent and very easily readable adventure. As most novels from that era it is actually very realistic (to me it is more believable than aliens landing etc. Read more

Published on 30 Aug 2006 by WhiteCrow

5.0 out of 5 stars Great entertaining read
I'm not really a fan of adventure stories or Jules Verne for that matter, but Journey to the Centre of the Earth was a very enjoyable read. Read more

Published on 19 Jul 2006 by Catfish

3.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable
Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a "Classic". It says so on the cover of my book. Read more

Published on 17 May 2006 by T. Bobley

› See all 42 customer reviews...

Listmania!

Adventure Fiction: A list by Adam Raoof
Literary Escapes: A list by Calder Benson
Jules Verne's Extraordinary Adventures: A list by Kara Ortiez

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Books > Fiction > By Period > 19th Century
Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > V > Verne, Jules
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Adventure
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Classic

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.