Jules Verne (1828-1905). 1908 illustration of the French novelist, poet and playwright Jules Gabriel Verne. Verne is best known for his 'Voyages extraordinaires' adventure novels including 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth', 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea' and 'Around the World in Eighty Days'. He had a wide influence on literary avant-garde and surrealism and is the second-most translated author in the world. However, most contemporaneous translations have been widely criticised for their poor representation of Verne's authorship through extensive textual omissions, errors and alterations.