It is in fact two manuscripts dating from 1868 and 1869 that the National Library of France lends for this exhibition.
The first, with its tiny handwriting, brings together two intermediate versions of this travel story under the world's oceans. The second, easily readable, is the final text for the printer.
Amiens is the place where Jules Verne ends his days, choosing the city of his wife.
But the writer writes mainly in a small fishing port 75 km away, in the Bay of Somme.
One of the two manuscripts of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne exhibited at the Museum of Picardy, June 2, 2023 in Amiens © DENIS CHARLET / AFP
"It is in Le Crotoy that he will write most of his novel, as well as aboard his boat. He writes to his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, that he comes full of ideas while sailing," explains one of the curators, the academic Daniel Compère.
Hetzel will be demanding with his author, pushing him to give this adventure a romantic breath and characters worthy of the subject.
Starting with Captain Nemo, at the controls of the submarine Nautilus.
The two manuscripts of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne exhibited at the Museum of Picardy, June 2, 2023 in Amiens © DENIS CHARLET / AFP
The Amiens museum goes so far as to recreate a wooden Nautilus, placed in its exhibition gallery with walls painted midnight blue.
It captures the impression left by the novel of this submersible blending into the ocean fauna.
"Jules Verne has a lot of imagination, but he's also a very hard worker. So he consults a gigantic mass of documentation," said another curator, François Séguin of the Musée de Picardie.
The writer is also passionate about science, who describes, for example, at length unknown fish, some specimens caught in the Indian Ocean and passed through the hands of a taxidermist are exposed.
The exhibition "Twenty thousand leagues under the sea" by Jules Verne at the Museum of Picardy, June 2, 2023 in Amiens © DENIS CHARLET / AFP
Serialized in 1869-1870, the novel also owes its popularity to the 111 illustrations of the 1871 edition, signed Édouard Riou and Alphonse de Neuville.
"The success was immediate and universal," says François Séguin. It culminated in the film adaptation by Disney Studios in 1954.
The exhibition "Twenty thousand leagues under the sea" by Jules Verne at the Museum of Picardy, June 2, 2023 in Amiens © DENIS CHARLET / AFP
The adventures of this world tour and the mystery surrounding Nemo have made "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" one of the most read and translated books in the world.
The exhibition is open until October 1st.
© 2023 AFP