Jules Verne (1828-1905) was born in Nantes, western France. He wrote over eighty books and his most successful stories - including Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1874) - were given the collective title, 'Extraordinary Journeys'. Verne was a true inventor and visionary, possessed of a unique image of the future, and several of the innovations depicted in his stories presaged real scientific developments. He remains one of the best loved and most frequently translated French authors. Robert Ingpen was born in 1936 in Geelong, Australia, and still lives and works nearby in Barwon Heads. He studied illustration art and book design at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In 1986 he was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his contribution to children's literature and he has been honoured with Membership of the Order of Australia. A world-renowned artist and author, Ingpen has designed, illustrated and written more than one hundred books, including his highly acclaimed series of illustrated Children's Classics, which have now been published in many editions around the world.