Jules Verne is often referred to as the father of science fiction with novels such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon, and Around the World in Eighty Days. What is less known is that Verne originally began his writing career in theater. It would be years later that Verne would seek to create a new novel to combine entertainment with scientific fact. ?Aside from his own literary writings, Verne was also a fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s work. So much so that in 1897 he wrote a sequel to Poe’s 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Like Poe, Verne never visited the Kerguelen Islands featured in their novels. This was a pattern of Verne’s work that his stories tended to venture further than his travels as he excited his readers with tales of far-off places.