ISN'T VERNE A PLAGIARIST?

[Manuel Guillermo Gómez Paz]

Re: “[…] discredit Verne as a plagiarist…?” (Garmt, in [JVF] A.I. Verdict 99.999%...  (31/10/2025).

 I have read that:

 “Although Jules Verne will concentrate on the man himself, the writing cannot be ignored. Verne’s repeated passing off and plagiarism started as private matters, but ended up in court. The many discoveries in recent years have reversed readings of the Extraordinary Journeys and overturned ideas about the writer’s life.” (William Butcher, 2006, pp. xxii-xiii).

 “Three French books are by far Verne’s most important sources [Re Hatteras]: Journeys in the Ice . . . Extracts from the Reports of Sir John Ross, Parry . . . McClure by Amateur Hervé and Ferdinand Lanoye (eds.) (1854), St. Stanislas schoolmate Lucien Dubois’s The Pole and the Equator (1863), and Lanoye’s The Polar Sea (1864). Verne borrows throughout from Hervé and Lanoye, indeed copying about eight pages word for word, mistakes included, making this the lengthiest plagiarism identified in his works.” (WB, 2006, p. 156)…

 

“Verne undoubtedly wrote the novel [Re VCE] between January and August 1864, perhaps while finishing Captain Hatteras. The source for the cipher was Poe’s cryptogram in “The Gold-Bug” (1843) and the Runic alphabet came from an inscription in the Univers pittoresque (BSJV 135:46)… There are also unmistakable debts to Hoffmann, Sand, and Dumas. Cutting and pasting from Louis Figuier’s The Earth before the Deluge (1863) was systematic, even by the lax standards of the time. It is a moot point whether the borrowing comes close to plagiarism”. (WB, 2006, p. 159).

 

“From January Verne was hard at work on a new project, the Illustrated Geography of France and her Colonies. Eminent geographer Théophile Lavallée had contracted to write it, written the introduction and thirteen of the eighty-nine sections, but fallen too ill to continue. Verne soon realized that the thirteen installments derived from Malte-Brun’s Illustrated France. He decided to hide the plagiarism by judicious rewriting (January 29, 1867)”. (WB, 2006, p. 183).

 

“More than a dozen of the works that the Library of Congress still lists as entirely Jules Verne’s, perhaps a million words, are no such thing. Verne purloined considerable parts of his published works, and was twice sued for breach of copyright and libel, escaping conviction only by twisting the truth. In some cases, he perpetrated fraud with his publisher’s active connivance; but in some Hetzel probably suspected nothing.” (WB, 2006, p. 247-8).

 

“Verne was sued for plagiarism by a Léon Delmas. Under the pseudonym René de Pont-Jest, he had published a short story called “>La Tête de Mimers” in the Revue contemporaine of September 1863. The hero is German; he finds the document that causes the journey in an old book; it is written in runic characters; a shadow indicates where to look; and the journey takes place underground —all as in Journey to the Center of the Earth. The affair dragged on more than a decade until a court case in 1877, which Verne won: even though the similarities are not very extensive, Verne perhaps did read the short story, although categorically denying it (BSJV 135:13)”. (WB, 2006, p. 250).

(Underlined is mine).

 Friendly,

 Guillo 

[John Lamb]

Dear Guillo,

thankyou for this information, 

They are trying any old stuff to try and discredit me. I have stated that Verne uses Semmes and Birkenhead as a literary template so many times and it is not plagiarism. Theoretically Semmes would have a good case for plagiarism re his memoirs and probably win if he had sued, (100 links and many key words I believe purposely left in by Verne) but as I believe Semmes gave his memoirs (or similar) to Verne to 'do his worst' during the week he went missing in Paris in Sept 1864, it would not have happened. 

The fact that Verne had 'form' re plagiarism strengthens my case... he is just refining the practice in a most brilliant way. 

I smell new tactics now re many on the forum of ignoring me and talking over me (posting new articles in rapid succession either side of my own) I may be wrong (and hope I am)  but they seem to be posting  'non articles' are Panama Hats and random translation paragraphs rather than looking at theories of where the real inspiration for Journey to the Centre of the Earth lies. 

I take it you have read my mini article on Journey to the Centre of the Earth - it is undeniable in terms of the meeting of the 12 points re Bidston Hill, but 'they' can not just screaming 'coincidence' all the time for each post, so they stay silent so far......I enjoy the duel because they are literally now on my 'home territory' and I aim to keep them there as much as possible. . 

Verne plagiarises a whole peninsula and a town (Birkenhead) for stage sets (you can tell he was a theatre director of plays) in Mysterious Island as well as real life celebrities like Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald (Gideon Spilett of the New York Herald) and Cyrus Field (Cyrus Smith) but cruticall (for us) he purposely leaves behind clues by not changing the names too much, (e.g.  Farragut and Abraham Lincoln) re Semmes and Nemo in 20,000 Leagues. 

Butcher has still not answered my questions. 

Let us see if anything develops in the next few days.

I will definitely set  Butcher  his latest 'examination question' to name any place in the world' which  inspired is a better literary template for the Scartaris shadow scene in A Journey to the Centre of the Earth. He won't be able to do that question either. 

This is but a tool to put him on the spot and ask him ' why dont you produce a better answer if you dont like mine? ...but he can't...so he discredits me and uses his colleagues to join in. .

Best John

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[Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd]

Excuse me? Don't quote me as saying things I've never said, thank you. This snippet is from a question asked by James in that thread. 

Cheers,

Garmt

--

[John Lamb]

Yes, but listening in, my thoughts still hold true, whoever the poster.

Best John

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[Manuel Guillermo Gómez Paz]

Yes, Garmt. You are right. Sorry. The phrase is James D. Keeline´s. I apologize deeply.

G.

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[Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd]

And yes, Verne has been known to paraphrase descriptions of landscapes, cities, flora and fauna, from other sources, sometimes citing them (e.g. Reclus or Chaffanjon), sometimes not. He also based some characters on actual people (Ardan/Nadar, Roch/Turpin), again one more openly than the other. I don't think that's a point of contention here on the forum.

Identifying specific sources of inspiration can be a nice topic for discussion, of course. But I must say the tone and style of the discussion in the past few weeks are not particularly encouraging me to keep participating in it. For my part, I'm happy to read questions on straw hats or derelict churches for a change! It's not as if we can only move on to a new topic after the previous one has reached perfect consensus...

[John Lamb]

There have been so many occasions when I have been asked questions that I have  already answered previously in my articles...including stating Verne is not plagiarism.  As I say I am literally on 'home territory now' with Mysterious Island, The Floating Island and Journey to the Centre of the Earth and there is a lot more to post. 

Garmt I look forward to you telling me the chances (using A.I. or not) of me fulfilling all the criteria for the 12 descriptive points of Scartaris and matching them exactly to Bidston Observatory Birkenhead (as originally posted with the help of editor Paul March Russell in the International Revue of science fiction). Please take as much time as you like one. 

As you are aware A.I. and mathematics is not my speciality...but Birkenhead is so please grill me.

Best John 

Best John

[John Lamb]

Dear Garmt,

I appreciate this but sometimes moving knowledge forward can be a fraught experience with differing views. I could make a fine collection of the names I have been called in the last few weeks. I would like you to grill me but it is not compulsory!

Best John

[Steve]

I am very pleased that my copy of "Journey to the Moon," translated by David Coward with William Butcher, arrived today from Amazon, well head of the earlier projected November 13th date!

Looking forward to perusing it tonight upon my return from an Elks meeting.

Steve Servello

[James D. Keeline]

This is but a tool to put him on the spot and ask him ' why dont you produce a better answer if you dont like mine? 

 

Best John

 What I keep seeing from your perspective is an avalanche of text from you.  Some is repetitive and others has variations.

This would be bad enough but it is compounded by your requests, even rising to demands, that the members of this forum examine your claims and counter each and every one of them.  The reality is that we are not a system like an AI that exists to respond to your every prompt.  The people here have their own lives and the time spent here is taken from something else that might be more important and impact their careers or personal research and writing projects.

If this group was set up as an "Ask Me Anything About Jules Verne" then this expectation might be somewhat reasonable, even though the demands are high from you with multiple posts a day and "homework" or "essay" assignments and calling out members by name in your subject lines.

Sometimes it must feel like your life and your ideas are the most important in the world.  But they are important mainly to you.  You have the emotional, intellectual, and time investment in them.  Others don't seem to share this.  It is very difficult for anyone who is interested to keep up with the deluge.

One way to handle this is to simply decline to engage.  You can call it "ignoring" as you have done here.  But consider that there are many reasons why this may be so.

There is very little back and forth in this series of posts.  You don't seem to absorb any expressions of concerns or outright objections to any point.  You instead shuffle your "skittles" around and make tiny refinements as you try to trench out the foundation of your sand castle.

You may be correct in your theories.  I don't have any particular stake in it.  Whether it is true or not makes little difference to me or my interest in Verne and his works.  I don't bow at his feet as a genius.  But I enjoy a well-written (and translated) adventure tale.

What does interest me is honest historical analysis.  Making sweeping claims without considering the alternative viewpoint is risky.  It's not merely a matter of defending the canon of texts and prior scholarship.  There is no cabal.  No secret handshakes.  Little or no money to be made in being fans and scholars into Jules Verne.  It is too much of a micromarket.  An argument is persuasive and relevant or it is not (or at least not both).

I don't expect any of the above will change anything here.  Please consider that we all have lives here.

James D. Keeline

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[John Lamb]

Dear James,

From, relatively early days and the time the editor of Verniana decided to make ridiculing personal anagrams about me, William Butcher joining in and labelling me 'adolescent', and Alex then taking what must have been three or four hours to make 100 points ridiculing me and my work...(when I had made those 100 points to cater for exactly the time constraints you describe) not one of you stepped in and said...hold on this British guy is coming in with new ideas...back off a bit....because those comments were undeserved and deeply hurt. 

No one on this forum chastised Alex for being so unprofessional, frankly I think he is a disgrace but I suppose you don't have to be professional in a chat forum. 

I refuse to be bullied (because that what it is) you were not part of that, but you will understand how I had to become stronger and yield less and that is why I called you out in a challenge, something I would never usually do but you were surrounded by toxic voices and my reaction was to the whole and not just to yourself. 

The way I have been treated on this forum has been disgraceful. 

You may think I am a toxic person, I am not...I joined a forum which is toxic

Toxic  to anyone who challenges the orthodoxy. 

I will keep posting and respect you or anyone else's right to disengage with me., grill me but not insult me. 

On a one to one I thankyou for your detailed replies. 

Best John

[William Butcher]

Well said, James. I've ended up marking john lamb as spam.

bill

---

From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of James D. Keeline <ja...@keeline.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 6, 2025 5:37 AM
To: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [JVF] ISN'T VERNE A PLAGIARIST?

 

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[John Lamb]

Yes but I'll still be here Bill

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[Alex Kirstukas]

Dear John,

Oh goodness. Stopping by this group after a few days' absence, I'm very sorry to find my last message has been taken in a way I didn't intend at all. It sounds like there are some serious misconceptions floating around - let me see if I can clarify some things here, at the risk of a long message.

1. What the JVF Is - and Isn't

For as long as I've known it (and it's been around in various incarnations since 1996), the Jules Verne Forum has been a home for informal, friendly discussions between Verne readers. It's a great place for random questions, quick news updates, casual odds and ends, and other bits of unseriousness. It doesn't host any articles or other forms of publication, just simple email messages that anyone in the group can send.

Because of that format, the JVF is a poor fit for anything that's intended as formal publication or advancement of research. As we've seen in the last couple of years, when a long piece of assertive theorizing is simply sent to the JVF without prior context, it's often been met initially with silence - because in an informal setting like this, it's hard to know what to do with it. It's a bit like going to a pub to catch up with your mates, only to find one of them wants to book the whole pub for a lecture on the Shakespearean authorship controversy. How are you supposed to respond to that?

To complicate the issue, when JVF members have tried to respond in a suitably friendly, informal way with those pieces of theorizing, it seems they've often been misinterpreted. I've found this myself with the two messages I've sent about the Semmes question - both of which were friendly, casual notes, aiming simply to use humorous exaggeration to point out some difficulties with the methods of argument being employed. I took pains at the time to emphasize that I appreciated the enthusiasm of the argument and that I meant no malice whatsoever, so it's been troubling to see all that signposting treated as if it were ridicule (or worse, attack). If the JVF were a scholarly publication platform, I can see how such informal replies and affectionate chaffing could be taken the wrong way - but, again, the JVF simply ain't a scholarly publication platform. It's a pub.

2. No Cabal, Just Caution

As James says, there's no cabal here, and no gatekeeping; what seems here to be misinterpreted as hostility is in fact just a community wanting to fact-check a theory and to test its arguments for problems. In the case of the Birkenhead/Semmes theory, the big hurdle is the paper trail. We have a LOT of documentary evidence about Verne's writing process (manuscripts, working notes, outlines, correspondence, travel diaries, interviews, etc.). If I'm understanding the Birkenhead theory correctly, it requires that Verne made extremely detailed secret geographical notes about various places in Birkenhead, had a clandestine meeting with Raphael Semmes in 1864, received a pre-publication French translation of Semmes's memoirs, and drafted multiple novels to fit those secret materials. Which, if true, would be wildly exciting and interesting - only, why isn't any of that in the paper trail? The marginalia of Verne's manuscripts are full of working notes about his sources, calculations, extrapolations, etc., but nobody's seen references there to Birkenhead's measurements or Semmes's memoirs. Similarly, Verne talks chattily in letters and interviews about other times he'd modeled fictional characters on real characters, so it would be odd for him to stay mum about by far the most elaborate modelling of all.

Again, this would be an immensely exciting discovery - only before we can call it a discovery, we need to feel confident it's supported by the documents in the case, which is the kind of thing best tackled by peer review in a more scholarly Vernian setting. (And even then there'd be mysterious loose ends remaining, like - as Don Sample points out - how Verne was able to conjugate the English verb "sank" correctly for an anagram in 1863 despite being unable to do so for publication in 1867.)

3. On a Personal Note…

Speaking of which: I'm not the editor of Verniana, just one of many people on the editorial board (and one of the newest recruits at that). What's more, as others have pointed out, Verniana's an entirely separate entity, filling a separate purpose (refereed works focusing on original archival research). There are a few people who wear multiple hats and participate in both, since Verne fandom is a small world after all, but that's it. The same goes for the NAJVS, an appreciation society unaffiliated with either the JVF or Verniana.

Whew! Long message over. Please let me emphasize again that I've never meant any ill will or personal attack - either here or on any other message I've sent to anyone on the JVF. On the contrary, I'm full of respect and empathy for your Vernian enthusiasm, and hope it takes you exciting places. For almost 30 years the JVF has managed to be friendly, informal, chaffing, unassuming, unserious - and if we keep recognizing that, there's a good chance we can keep it that way.

Cheers,

Alex

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[volker.dehs]

Thanks to Alex for this opportune clarification. I only want to add two informations for the discussion:

1) The identification on Flourens as a model of Nemo is superflous. A greek article by L. Kallevretakis published in 2004 "Jules Verne's Captain Nemo and French Revolutionary Gustave Flourens" (eventually still available on Internet) has shown the implausibility of this hypothesis. You can also consult my Verniana article "Nemo, Flourens et quelques autres" (vol. III, 2010-2011)

2) I spent several years consulting and dicephering  what still exists of Verne's working notes at the Amiens Library, greatly unpublished. The result has been published in a thematical list in the Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne (indeed, in French!), no. 190 (2015), pp. 66-85). I never located the name of Semmes in these notes nor in other documents. What is more important, Verne draw up around 1901 a long note of ca. 350 important persons he met  during his life time, arranged by social groups. There is no trace of Semmes. If Semmes and Birkenhead had the impact on Verne as hypothetically proposed by John, he would not have completely disappeared in Verne's papers, I guess.

Sorry for my bad English.

Cheers,

Volker

[Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd]

Hi John,

You're asking me to quantify the plausibility of the connection Bidston-Scartaris. I'm afraid I can't put a number on it, it's just not possible to calculate a probability in such an underspecified problem. Personally, I feel the similarities are completely aleatory.

You see, we humans are brilliant at recognising patterns, so brilliant in fact that we tend to see patterns even when there are none. You know the effect of seeing a face in two windows and a door, or two headlights and a licence plate, or in a random rock on Mars? This tendency gives us an evolutionary advantage, since the gains are high and the risks low. If the face turns out to be a letterbox, no harm done.

On the other hand, people are absolutely rubbish at estimating and understanding probabilities. The answer to the exclamation "What are the odds?!" is usually really something like "pretty high, in fact". People confuse "a low probability of event X happening" with "a low probability of event X happening to me". Or think of the gambler's fallacy that our friend Silas Toronthal in Mathias Sandorf fell for: after seventeen times on red, the roulette ball is far more likely to fall on black. Nope, still 50:50, if the wheel is fair, and if the wheel is unfair, black is even more unlikely.

These two effects combined mean that most people are very poor judges of the relevance of a perceived pattern. In the natural sciences, bias is an important consideration when assessing the validity of an experimental result. I use the term "bias" here in the scientific sense, e.g. a bias in selection of respondents for a questionnaire, or resulting from limitations in your instruments, not in its everyday slightly derogatory sense of "your favourite football team always play better than the opponent". In order to prevent bias, we take care to perform blind experiments, i.e. the researcher does not have any information that could skew his analysis. In particle physics, for example, only part of the data from a huge set is used to finetune software and analysis methods, and only after that has been completed is the rest of the data opened. In medicine, double-blind experiments are the gold standard. Anything to avoid so-called "p-hacking", pruning and massaging your data until you get a significant effect.

And even if the entire analysis has been done with the greatest care, interpretation of the results can still be tricky. In social sciences, the usual criterion to claim a significant effect is p < 0.05, that is, the probability of observing the data you found under the null hypothesis (no effect, pure chance) is less than 0.05. Therefore, out of twenty experiments that claim to have found a significant effect, you might typically expect one to be based on pure chance. In physics or astronomy, the standard for a significant result is 5σ, or p < 0.0000003. It helps that you don't have to ask electrons for informed consent, so you can collect tons of data :)

Another risk is to confuse correlation with causation. Yes, ice cream sales are correlated to deaths by drowning, but eating an ice cream does not put you at risk: it's simply because hot summer weather increases both ice cream consumption and the number of people who go for a swim in the sea. The website spurious correlations has great examples, you can even look for your own. Or watch this video by Matt Parker for more fascinating examples.

With all this in mind, I hope you can appreciate how I'm very reserved, skeptical, conservative, call it what you will, in believing an observed pattern to reflect some hidden truth. Ironically, and somewhat paradoxically, your having such a profound knowledge of Birkenhead and its surroundings puts you at greater risk of finding connections where there may be none. In the case of Verne and his sources of inspiration, similarities between his text and a real world location alone are not enough, especially if a lot of interpretation is involved. Some external corroboration is needed: notes in a diary, remarks in a letter, that sort of thing. Otherwise, you might have another Rennes-le-Château on your hands...

Cheers,

Garmt

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[Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd]

Volker's second point perfectly illustrates what I meant when I mentioned the need for external corroboration.

Also, I fully agree with Alex' post, which I hadn't read before pushing the send button.

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[Bernhard]

Hi,

some may think i am out of following this group and postings.... No, I am not, concerning really provable news. But yes, if  i get every day some 15 to 20 posts turning around some "estimations" and "guessing" and "interpretations" what might JV have had for intentions or influences to his writings ...

On the one site, I approve serious intense research and even founded ideas developed about aspects of Verne, his works and its content.

On the other site, I have absolutely no interest discussing about unconfirmed personal theoretic ideas and interpretations of Vernes thinking himself or what he "might have implemented of own ideas in his novels", especially once it heads towards an implementation of some certain direction of "improvement" without being a prove ..."

All the discussion started, as far as I noted (and honestly said, I didn't read much of the posts of the last weeks here...) by implementing that Birkenhead (place which I know personally from the mid- 1990's ...) was a basic subject inspiration of JV ... I can't personally follow this, as JV in my completely personal opinion never focussed in such a way on Birkenhead or other influences based there (like ideas for the persons of Nemo or Lidenbrok, as discussed in these hundreds of almost not-read-posts of the last weeks...)...

Constructing proves around a logic appearing theory is quite normal for the one who develop such an idea, and the more of arguments he can present, the more correct such constructions seem to be. But once breaking down such things to really approvable facts, it can be seen that a lot of it collapse to nothing ...

As I said, I have no interest to discuss these things, I am only opening my mouth concerning what I think about these almost endless posts about some theoretic ideas ... Maybe everyone contributing takes a break to think about what is taking place here and in what way he considers it worthy to be continued to be contributed ...

All the best

Bernhard

[William Butcher]

Agreed. The JVF will throw up constructive ideas if there is a calm, cooperative mood, slightly lacking recently.

Most biographies of Verne to date sweep too many items under the carpet, meaning they're not as comprehensive as one might like. A popular biography is not a learned treatise: the standard of proof is lower, although of course interpretations should be based on facts. So all sorts of  balance have to be struck... a bit like contributing to forums I suppose...

Best 

---

From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd <garmtd...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 6, 2025 4:39 AM

To: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [JVF] ISN'T VERNE A PLAGIARIST?

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[William Butcher]

Quoting from (supposed) authority is not the only way to approach these questions, where dogmatic affirmations or denials should be avoided. (On plagiarism, Tim Unwin was amongst the first to raise the question.) Sorry to cite my own research, but  knowledge of the  manuscripts of the novels often helps.

A+

Bill

---

From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd <garmtd...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 6, 2025 11:18 PM

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[William Butcher]

So many biographies of Verne are as dull as ditchwater. They ignore the first few years,  provide a potted summary of M Allotte de la Fuye (without acknowledging the source...), summarise a few works, throw in a few illustrations and that's that. I personally look for stimulation in a biography and for questioning of the conventional wisdoms, in a word a degree of "personality", revealed by risk-taking.

bill 

---

From: William Butcher <wbutch...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 7, 2025 7:03 AM

[John Lamb]

Hi Alex, 

just got back from the pub, so too 'tired' to look at your email in detail, but the gist of it is thankyou for getting back to me. Please look at my Saknussemm, Semmes Bidston Hill re Journey to the Centre of the Earth article....otherwise I can not massively be arsed talking at all about pedantics with anyone. 

Conversely if, as someone twenty years younger than me and far better looking,  if you want to carry on the Verne Birkenhead candle, then please go for it and we can have a yap.

Best John

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