Paris in the twentieth century

Paris in the Twentieth Century (French: Paris au XXe siècle) is a science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The book presents Paris in August 1960, 97 years in Verne's future, where society places value only on business and technology. Written in 1863 but first published 131 years later (1994), the novel follows a young man who struggles unsuccessfully to live in a technologically advanced, but culturally backwards world. Often referred to as Verne's "lost novel", the work paints a grim, dystopian view of a technological future civilization. Many of Verne's predictions were remarkably on-target. His publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, would not release the book because he thought it was too unbelievable, and its sales prospects would be inferior to Verne's previous work, Five Weeks in a Balloon.