[db105]

Voyage à reculons en Angleterre et en Écosse (Backwards to Britain, written 1859, first published 1989) (1 volume) 57K words


This semi-autobiographical (not part of the Extraordinary Voyages) novel is an account of the journey to England and Scotland that Jules Verne and his friend Aristide Hignard made in 1859. Verne always had a fascination for Scotland, and set two of his extraordinary voyages there ("The Child of the Cavern" and "The Green Ray").

For the novel, Verne changed the names of the characters: he became Jacques Lavaret, while his friend Aristide became Jonathan Savournon. This allowed him to take some liberties with the story, exaggerating a few passages, but mostly it was a faithful depiction of their trip.

This was the first novel that Verne had ever written. He offered it to the publisher Hetzel, but it was rejected. Verne set the manuscript aside and never tried to publish it again, until it was discovered and published in 1989, 84 years after the author's death. Soon after rejecting this novel, however, Hetzel would accept another Verne manuscript, also a travel story, this one fictional, dealing with the more timely topics of ballooning and African exploration. Thus, "Five Weeks in a Balloon" would become Jules Verne's first published novel and the first Extraordinary Voyage.

But let's come back to "Backwards to Britain". The title comes from a change of plan during the trip, as the steamer that was to take the two friends to Liverpool was delayed several days and finally docked not in Saint-Nazaire as originally intended, but in Bordeaux, forcing the travellers to go south to meet it, in a direction opposite to their final destination (thus "backwards").

The tone of the novel is light and good-humored. Jacques (Verne) is enthusiastic and full of puppyish energy, while Jonathan (Hignard) is calmer. Because of this engaging tone, it is a pleasant read, even though it's not as funny as some later Verne novels.

Verne was always a great admirer of Walter Scott, and one of his main sources of pleasure when he gets to Scotland is seeing the locations of the great Scottish novelist. This romantic view of Scotland is also contrasted with its modern, technological present. The darker side of this modern development is also acknowledged, with the two friends being impressed during the English part of their voyage by the misery of the factory workers in Liverpool.

Verne's biases are in view: while he admires the energy and the technological ingenuity of the English, he likes the Scots better, no doubt influenced by the natural beauty of Scotland and the romantical image of it he has from Scott's novels. He also admires Dickens, but Scott captures his imagination more.

Several of Verne's Extraordinary Voyages also take the form of a travelogue and feature geographical descriptions, but they are spiced up by an adventure, which is something "Backwards to Britain" lacks. Since I particularly enjoy adventure stories, this novel felt a bit lightweight to me, pleasant enough but not as enjoyable as Verne's adventure stories. Even though the point of view of French travellers in Britain at the height of the Victorian era is interesting, this remains an obscure entry in Verne's bibliography, and will only be read by the most thorough Verne fans, or by those particularly interested in Scotland and England travelogues or in Walter Scott's settings.