In 1851, Jules Verne met with Pitre-Chevalier, a fellow writer from Nantes and the editor-in-chief of the magazine Musée des familles (The Family Museum).

[1] Pitre-Chevalier was looking for articles about geography, history, science, and technology, and was keen to make sure that the educational component would be made accessible to large popular audiences using a straightforward prose style or an engaging fictional story.

[2] Verne first offered him a short historical adventure story, "The First Ships of the Mexican Navy," written in the style of James Fenimore Cooper, whose novels had deeply influenced him.

The latter story, with its combination of adventurous narrative, travel themes, and detailed historical research, would later be described by Verne as "the first indication of the line of novel that I was destined to follow.

"[3] While writing stories and articles for Pitre-Chevalier, Verne began to form the idea of inventing a new kind of novel, a Roman de la Science (novel of science), which would allow him to incorporate large amounts of the factual information he so enjoyed researching in the Bibliothèque.