The NEW BERN
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
IN THE HEART OP
jr*«TERN NORTH
V ^ 4?7 *
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1
VOLUME 16
NEW BERN, N. C. 28560, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1973
NUMBER 38
Our belated thanks to C. W.
(BUI) Smith, Jr., for bringing to
our attention the fact that
famed Jules Verne, who wrote
Twenty Thousand Leagues
Under The Sea, also penned a
novel dealing with New Bern.
BiUy, whose quest for rare
books puts him in the class of
another local sleuth, Charles
Duffy, Jr., was understandably
elated when he discovered that
Verne’s For the Flag repeatedly
refers to our town.
The story b^ins with receipt
of a card by the Director of
Healthful House on 15th June,
1890, on which was scribbled in
pencil: “On board the schooner
Bbba, at anchor at Newbum,
Pamlico Sound.’’
In the succeeding paragraph,
Verne, explains for his readers
that “Newburn in North
Carolina is situated at the
farther end of the esturay of
the Neuse, which flows into
Pamiico Sound, a vast salt
water lake protected by a
natural breakwater of islands
and islets.’’
Further along in the novel,
Uiat largely centers here, the
author teUs how “the Ebba
turned her head eastwards to
foUow the left bank of the
Neuse. About fifteen miles from
Newburn the river bends
suddenly, winding toward the
north-west, and then getting
wider.
“Having reached the bend,
the Ebba veered towards the
north, close to the wind, along
the left bank. It was eleven
o’clock when, favoured by the
brmze and without having met
either cruiser or steam launch,
she rounded the point of the
island of Sivan, beyond which
begins Pamlico Sound.’’
Since you may, in due time,
have an opportunity to read For
The Flag, we won’t spoil your
enjoyment by elaborating on
the narrative. Sufficient to say
that Verne, a globally
recognized master of science
fiction, didn’t hurt his
reputation in writing it.
In his Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under The Sea, Verne
wrote about the submarine
almost thirty years before it
was invented, and he also used
the airplane and the automobile
in his stories.
So uncanny was the French
writer in accurately foretelling
the future, that his novels are no
longer so fantastic as they
seemed when they were first
published.
There is even speculation that
Thomas Roch’s Fulgurator, as
described by Verne in For The
Flag, is a forecast of the atomic
bomb. It is pointed out that the
two weapons have enough in
common to make the idea
plausible.
Bom in Nates in 1828, he lived
a remarkable life. He studied
law in Paris, and at twenty
helped write the librettos, or
words for several operas. He
wrote unsuccessftd plays before
he turned to novels and penned
a best seller titled Five Weeks
(Continued on page S',
"WHY SURE I'M SANTA CLAUS"