when working up the preliminary engineering designs for his “Standard Island” in Propeller Island (1895), Verne repeatedly consulted with Paul, asking for his technical advice. The following excerpts from their correspondence of this period are typical:
Amiens, 5 June 1893
My dear Paul, … Next year I will really need your help for my propeller island, so as not to make any stupid mistakes. The first volume is written. The second will be in 3 months. I’m much ahead of schedule. The island is large, 25 to 30 kilometers around. Do you think that it can be steered without a rudder by using two propeller systems on each side powered by dynamos run by machines generating a million horsepower of force? … Tell me when you can, as you’re waiting for me to send you the proofs.66
Amiens, 8 September 1893
My dear Paul, I received your letter, which has crossed my own in the mail, and I will send you today the proofs of the end of volume 2, which you can return to me when you’ve looked them over. I have rewritten according to your corrections, which I am using verbatim.67
Amiens, 12 September 1894
My dear Paul, … I suspect that I have made many errors, and that’s why I sent you the proofs. But it is not enough to point the errors out to me; you must indicate to me how to fix them.68
Amiens, [October?] 1894
My dear Paul, I have just received your letter and the proofs. I thank you for the huge amount of work you have done. Without you, I would have never been able to manage this.69
It has often been argued that the pervasive and sometimes pivotal influence of Verne’s editor-publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel in shaping the content of the author’s Voyages extraordinaires has been underestimated. It seems that Paul Verne’s contributions to the fundamental design of some of his brother’s legendary “dream machines” is also a story that remains to be told.
But it was especially Paul who served as his brother’s most trusted confidant during those often-traumatic years of the late 1880s and the 1890s when Jules was repeatedly beset with a host of physical, emotional, and financial problems. As the biographer Herbert Lottman has observed, “Family correspondence, which sheds so much light on the life of the young Jules Verne, is missing for the middle years when Verne gained literary renown. But there is another rich lode of letters, beginning in 1893 to draw upon. These letters were written to one of the few people in whom Jules never ceased to confide—his brother Paul, who was now turning sixty-four.”70 Foremost among Verne’s concerns were the continuing difficulties with his son, Michel, whose repeated career changes and bankruptcies, costly amorous escapades, divorce from his first wife, and difficulties with the law caused Verne at one point to complain to Paul “the future frightens me considerably. Michel does nothing, finds nothing to do, has cost me 200,000 francs, has three sons, and their entire upbringing is going to fall on my shoulders. I’m ending badly.”71 Verne’s growing financial worries had earlier forced him to sell his beloved yacht, the Saint-Michel III, and he would never again sail the open seas, with Paul or anyone else. Then, on March 9, 1886, he was attacked at gunpoint by his deranged nephew Gaston and shot in the lower leg; he would remain partially crippled for the rest of his life. Later that same month, his publisher and “spiritual father,” Pierre-Jules Hetzel, died. Soon thereafter, in speaking with Hetzel’s son, Verne confessed, “I have entered the dark period of my life.”72 The following year, his mother died. And during the ensuing years, in addition to having to walk with a cane, Verne was plagued by a variety of physical ailments, including severe gastrointestinal problems, recurrent dizziness, rheumatism, cataracts, and diabetes. In a letter to Paul in 1894, following the June marriage of his niece Marie, the author confides, “I see that the wedding was very jolly, but it is precisely this sort of merriment that is intolerable to me now. My character is deeply altered, and I have received blows from which I shall never recover.”73 When Paul Verne died of heart disease three years later, on August 27, 1897, Jules was grief-stricken, saying, “What a friend I have lost in him!” and “I never thought that I’d outlive him.”74 According to his grandson, Verne “was so crushed and so ill that he could not attend the funeral.”75 With memories of his deceased brother fresh in his mind, Jules Verne began work on The Kip Brothers the following summer.
Some of Verne’s novels have been called “visionary” for their unusual scientific or technological prescience. The Kip Brothers might also be termed “visionary,” but in an entirely different way. The strongly visual nature of its thematic content—from the initial sighting of the castaways to its strange ophthalmologic conclusion—underscores Verne’s own worsening eye problems during the late 1890s. As reflected in the novel’s plot, two real-life dramas of judicial error can also be easily visualized (one acknowledged by Verne and one not): the Rorique/Degrave brothers’ trials and the infamous Dreyfus Affair. Finally, The Kip Brothers envisions—or, more correctly, re-visions—its author’s personal past as Verne builds an idealized literary memorial to his relationship with his beloved late brother, Paul. It is ironic that one of Verne’s most sight-oriented Voyages extraordinaires has become, since its publication, one of his least visible works. It is our hope that this first English translation of Verne’s Les Frères Kip will help to remedy that situation and to show the Anglophone reading public a new and different Jules Verne from the one they had thought they knew so well.
Jean-Michel Margot
I
Dunedin
1
Tavern of the Three Magpies
At that time—18851—forty-six years after its occupation by Great Britain, which had made it part of New South Wales, and thirty-two years after its independence from the Crown, New Zealand, now self-governing, was still devoured by gold fever. The disorders created by this sickness were not as destructive as they had been in certain states of the Australian continent. It did, however, lead to certain regrettable incidents that affected the population of both islands. The province of Otago,2 which constitutes the southern part of Tawaï-Pounamou,3 was invaded by gold seekers looking to establish placer mines, and the Clutha4 deposits also attracted a number of adventurers. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that the output of gold mines in New Zealand from 1864 to 1889 rose to a value of 1.2 francs.
The Australians and Chinese were not the only ones to swoop down like a flock of hungry birds of prey on these rich territories. Americans and Europeans flooded in as well. It will surprise no one that the crews of the various commercial ships bound for Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Napier, Invercargill, or Dunedin5 were not strong enough to resist this temptation once they reached port. In vain did captains attempt to hold back their sailors; in vain did the maritime authorities offer their assistance! Desertion was rampant and the harbors grew cluttered with ships that, for lack of a crew, were unable to leave.
Among the latter, at Dunedin, could be seen the English brig James Cook. Of the eight sailors making up its crew, only four had remained on board ship. The other four had left with the firm intention of never coming back.6
Twelve hours after their disappearance, they were probably already far from Dunedin, heading for the gold fields in the countryside. In port for some two weeks, his cargo already
