Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Jules Verne's 1870 science-fiction novel following Professor Pierre Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and harpooner Ned Land, who are taken captive aboard the Nautilus, a submarine commanded by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. They travel a largely uncharted underwater world across 20,000 leagues, encountering coral graveyards, Antarctic ice, giant squid, and the lost city of Atlantis. Verne combined meticulous research with speculative engineering to produce a novel that is part adventure story, part meditation on isolation and the costs of vengeance.