Jules Verne's third science fiction novel describes the discovery and exploration of a secret tunnel which leads through a volcano to the centre of the Earth. The leader of the expedition, together with his ward and joined by his nephew and an Icelandic guide commence the journey. Journey to the Centre of the Earth achieved instant and enduring popularity on publication in 1874.Together with Around the World in Eighty Days, Five Weeks in a Balloon and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, (all available as Wordsworth Classics), it established Verne as an author of high adventure who filled his stories with a wealth of technical detail, and the energy and freshness of an extraordinary, inventive imagination.