French writer Jules Verne (February 8, 1828 - March 24, 1905) pioneered the science fiction literary genre. He published many plays, essays, short stories, and poems during his lifetime, but is best known for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, and A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Today, he is one of the most translated authors in the world.
Ernest Hilbert received his doctorate in English Language and Literature from Oxford University in 2000. He has served as editor for the Oxford Quarterly, Random House's magazine Bold Type, and the Contemporary Poetry Review. His writing has appeared in American Scholar, The New Republic, The New Criterion, London Magazine, Yale Review, and many other publications. He is an antiquarian bookseller with the firm Bauman Rare Books, where he has had the pleasure of placing many Charles Dickens first editions of into private and public collections.
