The whole point of my arguments that seemed to enflame the things, which was not my intention, is that even a story has to tell something. The recurs to fantastic creatures was IMHO only a method to get a place in the literary world of that time, which was populated by other fictional works, but based on history (like
Les Mystères de Paris, or
Ben Hur).
The Victorian era had a lot of the elements needed for such a literary current, like the jobless wives who spent their time in reading love novels (love being forbidden to women, who had to be seduced against their will in order to hmm hmm) and to keep the children obedient by scare.
And therefore, both love (in historical times) and grotesque fictional monsters gained place, against classical (read greek antique) works, equally sad. And the competition of fantastic monsters enraged on and on, and we saw Dracula, Frankenstein (actually the monster has no name, Frankenstein is the mad scientist), and so on.
BTW,
Voyages extraordinaires are translated as
Fantastic voyages not as Extraordinary, so a bit of fantasy is given.
There is no need for Verne to invent creatures, as he could use real people, real actions, real stuff. Kipling's stories are also instructive...
BTW 2nd: the world oldest fantasy work, still in print, is the Bible: wherelse can one find Leviathans and Behemoths, snakes that eat dust, 4-legged insects and all kind of horrors, like plagues and stuff
