Verne’s ”Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas” has some surprisingly modern themes of social justice and environmentalism for an 1870s book.
Except right after Captain Nemo upbraids harpooner Ned Land for wanting to kill some innocent whales just for fun, he then proceeds to slaughter a pod of sperm whales with his ship, referring to them as vermin of the oceans. The sperm whales are described as monstrous predators of other whales. A common misconception or Verne just making shit up? 😅
Also fairly wild when you think of it that back when Verne wrote the book it was apparently unclear whether Antarctica even was a continent. He has Nautilus sail under ice right up to the Pole.
Verne did live to read about the 1902 expedition by Robert Falcon Scott ja Ernest Shackleton, that made it to 600 kilometers from the South Pole.
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