Pierre-Jules Hetzel

Pierre-Jules Hetzel (15 January 1814 – 17 March 1886) was a French editor and publisher celebrated for his extraordinarily lavishly illustrated editions of Jules Verne's novels, highly prized by collectors.

[citation needed] Born in Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, Hetzel studied law in Strasbourg, and founded a publishing company in 1837.

He founded the Bibliothèque illustrée des Familles ("The Family Illustrated Library"), which was renamed to Le Magasin d'éducation et de récréation ("Education and Entertainment Magazine") in 1864.

[citation needed] Hetzel's celebrity comes mostly for his editions of the Voyages extraordinaires ("Extraordinary Journeys") by Jules Verne.

[citation needed] Hetzel rejected Verne's 1863 manuscript for Paris in the Twentieth Century because he thought it presented a vision of the future that was far too negative and unbelievable for contemporary audiences, though to many modern scholars the story was remarkably accurate in its predictions.