I enjoyed many of Verne's books as a child, so last year I tried reading some to my children. I thought the writing held up quite well (compared to e.g. Karl Ma

I enjoyed many of Verne's books as a child, so last year I tried reading some to my children. I thought the writing held up quite well (compared to e.g. Karl May, another author I loved reading when I was young): In particular, Verne is able to deploy ethnic caricatures without coming across as bigoted: > What can be added to these figures, so eloquent in themselves? Nothing. So the following calculation obtained by the statistician Pitcairn will be admitted without contestation: by dividing the number of victims fallen under the projectiles by that of the members of the Gun Club, he found that each one of them had killed, on his own account, an average of two thousand three hundred and seventy-five men and a fraction. > By considering such a result it will be seen that the single preoccupation of this learned society was the destruction of humanity philanthropically, and the perfecting of firearms considered as instruments of civilisation. It was a company of Exterminating Angels, at bottom the best fellows in the world.