Journey to the Center of the Earth

Published in 1864

Categories: For TeensAdventure

A forest of giant mushrooms on the shore of an underground sea, with two tiny figures pointing at it from the top of a rock
Illustration: Édouard Riou, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1867)

Professor Liedenbrock of Hamburg finds a coded note in an old Icelandic book: a sixteenth-century alchemist claims to have reached the center of the earth through a volcano in Iceland. He drags his nervous nephew Axel north to follow him down. With their silent guide Hans they find a sea underground, forests of giant mushrooms and creatures long extinct. Jules Verne published the novel in 1864.

Translated from the French by F. A. Malleson (1877).

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1 Chapter 1: The Professor and His Family About 5 min 2 Chapter 2: A Mystery to Be Solved at Any Price About 5 min 3 Chapter 3: The Runic Writing Exercises the Professor About 10 min 4 Chapter 4: The Enemy to Be Starved into Submission About 5 min 5 Chapter 5: Famine, Then Victory, Followed by Dismay About 5 min 6 Chapter 6: Exciting Discussions About an Unparalleled Enterprise About 10 min 7 Chapter 7: A Woman's Courage About 10 min 8 Chapter 8: Serious Preparations for Vertical Descent About 10 min 9 Chapter 9: Iceland! but What Next? About 10 min 10 Chapter 10: Interesting Conversations with Icelandic Savants About 5 min 11 Chapter 11: A Guide Found to the Centre of the Earth About 10 min 12 Chapter 12: A Barren Land About 5 min 13 Chapter 13: Hospitality Under the Arctic Circle About 5 min 14 Chapter 14: But Arctics Can Be Inhospitable, Too About 10 min 15 Chapter 15: Snæfell at Last About 10 min 16 Chapter 16: Boldly Down the Crater About 10 min 17 Chapter 17: Vertical Descent About 5 min 18 Chapter 18: The Wonders of Terrestrial Depths About 5 min 19 Chapter 19: Geological Studies in Situ About 5 min 20 Chapter 20: The First Signs of Distress About 5 min 21 Chapter 21: Compassion Fuses the Professor's Heart About 5 min 22 Chapter 22: Total Failure of Water About 5 min 23 Chapter 23: Water Discovered About 5 min 24 Chapter 24: Well Said, Old Mole! Canst Thou Work I' the Ground So Fast? About 5 min 25 Chapter 25: De Profundis About 5 min 26 Chapter 26: The Worst Peril of All About 5 min 27 Chapter 27: Lost in the Bowels of the Earth About 5 min 28 Chapter 28: The Rescue in the Whispering Gallery About 5 min 29 Chapter 29: Thalatta! Thalatta! About 5 min 30 Chapter 30: A New Mare Internum About 10 min 31 Chapter 31: Preparations for a Voyage of Discovery About 5 min 32 Chapter 32: Wonders of the Deep About 10 min 33 Chapter 33: A Battle of Monsters About 10 min 34 Chapter 34: The Great Geyser About 5 min 35 Chapter 35: An Electric Storm About 10 min 36 Chapter 36: Calm Philosophic Discussions About 5 min 37 Chapter 37: The Liedenbrock Museum of Geology About 5 min 38 Chapter 38: The Professor in His Chair Again About 10 min 39 Chapter 39: Forest Scenery Illuminated by Electricity About 10 min 40 Chapter 40: Preparations for Blasting a Passage to the Centre of the Earth About 5 min 41 Chapter 41: The Great Explosion and the Rush Down Below About 5 min 42 Chapter 42: Headlong Speed Upward Through the Horrors of Darkness About 5 min 43 Chapter 43: Shot Out of a Volcano at Last! About 10 min 44 Chapter 44: Sunny Lands in the Blue Mediterranean About 10 min 45 Chapter 45: All's Well That Ends Well About 5 min