Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines Jules Verne’s intellectual trajectory and the pedagogical dimension of the novel Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon (1881), highlighting how the work brings together science, children’s literature, Franco-Brazilian cultural exchange, and the fictional construction of the Amazon based on documentary sources. The relevance of this study lies in the role played by Verne and his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, in shaping generations of young readers worldwide; in Verne’s place within nineteenth-century print culture; and in the importance of understanding how Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon combines entertainment and instruction in its representation of the Amazon. Based on bibliographic research, the article aims to present Verne’s biographical, professional, and editorial trajectory; discuss his formative partnership with Hetzel and the consolidation of the Voyages Extraordinaires series; and examine Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon as a pedagogical, scientific, and moral narrative. The findings indicate that Verne’s intellectual development emerged from the intersection of scientific curiosity, documentary rigor, and Hetzel’s significant editorial influence. In the novel analyzed, these elements converge in the creation of an “invented” Amazon, grounded in European sources and shaped by an encyclopedic view of nature. Although this representation has prompted criticism related to scientism, colonialism, the naturalization of racial hierarchies, and “armchair literature,” it also provides a valuable framework for reflecting on the circulation of knowledge, the formation of readers, and the educational function of children’s literature in the nineteenth century.
Source: Cadernos Ceru
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7167893760