The Underground City Jules Verne 9781842820803

The fourth most translated author in the world, Jules Verne is best known for his adventure novels Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Verne also set stories in Scotland, however, including The Underground City. In this all-new translation, Verne uses the mist-shrouded shores of Loch Katrine and the Trossachs as sinister scenery against which an enthralling tale of adventure, love and the supernatural unfolds.

Ten years after manager James Starr left the Aberfoyle mine underneath Loch Katrine exhausted of coal, he receives an intriguing missive that suggests the pit isn't barren after all. When Starr returns and discovers that there is indeed more coal to quarry, he and his workers are beset by strange events, hinting at a presence that does not wish to see them excavate the cavern further.

Could there be someone out to sabotage their work? Or is something more menacing afoot, something unnatural they can neither see nor understand? When one of his miners falls in love with a young girl found abandoned down a mineshaft, their unknown assailant makes it clear that nothing will stop its efforts to shut down the mine and prevent the wedding, even if that means draining Loch Katrine itself!

Jules Verne was born in 1828, in Nantes, France. In 1847 he studied Law in Paris, but this was not his main passion in life. He enjoyed writing more than anything, and his first play was published in 1850. Also a keen geographer, he spent many hours in Paris libraries studying engineering and astronomy researching his first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, which was published in 1863. A year later he published one of his most famous novels, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was published in 1973. He wrote prolifically through the rest of his life (54 novels) and died in 1905.