The Railways of The Begum’s Fortune by Jules Verne and André Laurie

Abstract

Jules Verne, who is second in UNESCO's list of most translated authors, was one of the pioneers in the production of modern science fiction. Many of his books occupied a special place somewhere between the fantastic and the visionary. André Laurie, one of the pseudonyms of Jean François Paschal Grousset, also a science fiction writer, collaborated with Verne in the publication of The Begum’s Fortune (1879). This book is a recurring reference in urbanism studies and is cited by several authors. Between the creativity and scientific reasoning used in this book, in this article we will analyse how the urban planning of the cities of France-Ville and Stahlstadt illustrated, in a futuristic vision, the implantation of railways with antagonistic functions, an aspect that is currently widely discussed in the field of the construction, preservation and rehabilitation of railways.