Five Weeks in a Balloon

Verne’s first novel was not technically part of the “Extraordinary Voyages” series — his publisher would not come up with the concept until he saw the author’s abilities, themes and popularity.

Young Verne — 35 at the time of the publication of Five Weeks in a Balloon — had no desire to be a businessman, whether a lawyer like his father, though he briefly studies for the bar, or a stockbroker, a career he chose to put food on the table for his family.

He desired to write, and did so whenever he could, composing libretti for , for example, but having moved to Paris, he found himself in the company of the likes of Victor Hugo and the elder Alexander Dumas, the latter of whom had made a name for himself with The Three Musketeers in 1844 and The Count of Monte Cristo in 1845. It is only logical that Verne would develop a flair for the adventure novel.

Adventure plus current headlines

With Five Weeks, he combined adventure with the headlines. All Europe had an interest in both ballooning — still considered an uncontrollable sport — and the exploration of Africa — still in its heyday. When Verne’s book was published in early 1863, Dr. [David] Livingstone’s Zambezi expedition, which has begun in 1858, was still a year from being complete.

Richard Francis Burton’s expedition was just back from the discovery of Lake Victoria — supposed, but still not known, to be the headwaters of the Nile. And a new trek, by John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant was getting under way in 1863, from Zanzibar, where Verne’s trio in Five Weeks leave from as well, heading to Lake Victoria and Lake Albert, to return in real life, triumphantly, by way of the Nile.

Burton had published his description of the earlier trek in Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa in 1860 and Speke would tell his side of the story — the two men didn’t see eye to eye, to say the least — in The Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile in 1863, the same year Five Weeks would hit the public.

Capturing Europe’s imagination

The story of the continuing discovery of the heart of the Dark Continent captured the imagination of Europe and America. So when Jules Verne’s intrepid Dr. Samuel Fergusson made a similar trip — and did so ingeniously by balloon — many readers at first didn’t know whether this was another true tale of African exploration or a fictional account.

And Verne and his publisher Hetzel didn’t go out of their way to settle the confusion.

He packed his first novel — as would be his tendency throughout his career — with current information and “cutting edge” science and technology, though as would be expected, some of his guesses about Africa and some of his scientific methodology would be wrong.

He started Five Weeks, for example, at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London, exactly where a real story of exploration might begin. He then proceeds to name names, going through a who’s who of African explorers of the day. How could anyone who kept abreast of the news of the day — which took in virtually all readers, Verne’s market — not want to believe that Fergusson was the latest in the line of those who would succeed, or die trying, in the exploration of Africa.

And by adding the additional twist of using a balloon, floating over the jungle rather than hacking through it, he offered just one more reason for reading his story.

In his 1851 short story about ballooning, Verne got right into the action, as would be expected in such a tale. In Five Weeks, he takes his time to build up, just as an adventurer would do in writing that part of his biography. He also builds an impressive backstory for Fergusson, linking him to many of the great exploration adventures of his day.

Characters complement each other

The story involves three major characters who play off each other, with complementary strengths and weaknesses and some comic relief. Verne would use a trio in other novels as well, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth.

While a balloon plays a role in the movie Around the World in Eighty Days (though Verne did not employ one in his novel), Five Weeks is a lesser known story. It was made into a movie by the father of disaster movies, Irwin Allen, in 1962, with Cedric Hardwicke as Dr. Fergusson.

But the lead in the comedy/adventure/romance — which Verne’s novel definitely was not — went to Red Buttons as “Donald O’Shay,” a character not in the book. Scary movie character actor Peter Lorre also had a major role that wasn’t in the book.

Those who appreciate Verne’s contribution to literature, whether adventure novels or science fiction, won’t want to miss his first novel, an edge-of-the-seat tale of exploration in a land that still isn’t well known to most of the world. Verne got the story right to the best of the knowledge — and prejudices — of his time. And he showed the world he knew how to write adventure, a truth he would prove over and over again in the following half century.