The world-renowned writer Jules Verne (1828–1905), one of the founders of adventure and science fiction literature, was born in western France. His father came from a family of lawyers, and his mother was from a family of shipowners and shipbuilders. His parents paid a lot of attention to Jules' education: the future writer attended various educational institutions from childhood, where he studied languages, geography, and rhetoric among other subjects. The boy was particularly interested in literature: from a young age, he devoured adventure novels, preferring those in which the action took place at sea. His lawyer father hoped that Jules would continue his work, and in 1848 he sent his son to Paris to study law. However, the young man himself was never inclined to a legal career, and after finishing his studies, he entered the circle of Parisian literati. There, Verne became friends with Dumas fils and, thanks to the involvement of Dumas père, was able to stage his first play. Later, the young writer turned to writing novels and short stories, initially published in the magazine Musee des familles. His editor was in search of an author able to write engagingly about science, and Verne, combining literary talent with a passion for geography and history, was a perfect fit. His works were always characterized by a combination of artistic fiction and scientific facts, unpredictability of plot twists, and captivating descriptions of incredible discoveries and travels to unknown lands. Success came to Verne in 1863, when the famous publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel published his novel 'Five Weeks in a Balloon'. This edition included Verne's novels 'The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain' and 'Around the World in 80 Days'. The plot of 'The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain' revolves around the young sailor Dick Sand, who unexpectedly finds himself in charge of a whaling schooner in the middle of the ocean. The novel 'Around the World in 80 Days' tells about the thrilling adventures of the eccentric Englishman Phileas Fogg and his servant, the Frenchman Jean Passepartout, who decided to circumnavigate the globe in the shortest time possible.
The illustrations for the works were created by the Leningrad artist Pyotr Ivanovich Lugansky (1911–1993). He was a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, an outstanding master of book and easel graphics, and a talented poster artist. During World War II, Lugansky was an artist for a divisional newspaper; he painted battle scenes, made sketches of besieged Leningrad, and created an entire series of portraits of his comrades-in-arms. In peacetime, Lugansky illustrated books by many domestic and foreign classics, including making drawings for the first post-war collection of works by Jules Verne.
