In Paris of the 1960's, Michel Dufrenoy wins an award for a verse he's written in Latin. The audience is amused and his family is put out. In this society everyone is obsessed with technology and life is only to be lived efficiently.

This novel was originally rejected by publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel when Verne submitted it in 1863 on the basis that it was too fantastic a depiction of the future to be credible. The story was then found and published in 1994 when the manuscript was discovered by Verne's great grandson, and a shocking number of Verne's predictions of the 20th century were found to be amazingly true to life.

Synopsis ©2006, The Works of Jules Verne
Used with permission.