<Tr> <Th> Followed by </Th> <Td> Around the Moon </Td> </Tr> <P> Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous - marin, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A Tour of the Underwater World) is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1870 . </P> <P> The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre - Jules Hetzel's periodical, the Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation . The deluxe illustrated edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou . The book was highly acclaimed when released and still is now; it is regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth . The description of Nemo's ship, called the Nautilus, was considered ahead of its time, as it accurately describes features on submarines, which at the time were very primitive vessels . </P> <P> The title refers to the distance traveled while under the sea and not to a depth, as 20,000 leagues is over six times the diameter, and nearly twice the circumference of the Earth . The greatest depth mentioned in the book is four leagues . The book uses metric leagues, which are four kilometres each . A literal translation of the French title would end in the plural "seas", thus implying the "seven seas" through which the characters of the novel travel; however, the early English translations of the title used "sea", meaning the ocean in general . </P>

When did 20000 leagues under the sea take place