Jules Verne is a passionate young man in his mid-twenties. His father, a prominent attorney, has sent him to Paris to study law at the Sorbonne. However, Verne has no desire to join the family law firm. His dream is to be a writer. He lives amid the bohemian artists and downtrodden in the poorer section of Paris, and ekes out a bare living publishing plays which fold almost as soon as they are performed.

Though Verne will eventually achieve world fame, it is during these early years of hardship and struggle that we make his acquaintance in "The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne." Young, inexperienced and naïve about the world, Verne is a character on the brink of self-discovery and adventure. It is Phileas Fogg and his airship, the Aurora, which make it possible for Verne to experience wider horizons and begin to understand his place in the world.

Verne is not a hero in the classic sense. He is not a man of action, nor skilled in weaponry. His strengths are his ideas and his brilliant mind. He is a visionary and a dreamer. He sees into future, imagining things that do not yet exist. In a desperate effort to make sense of his extraordinary gift of foresight, he records his visions in notebooks and on scratch paper, often not comprehending what he has drawn or why. Few support or even understand his unique perceptions, but there are those who seek to exploit his talents for nefarious purposes. It is this vulnerability to the forces of evil that helps draw Phileas Fogg to Verne's aid. Fogg recognizes and respects the younger man's abilities, and appoints himself mentor and protector.

It is under the guidance of the older and worldlier Phileas Fogg, that Verne himself begins to perceive the importance of his visions and their potential, both for good and ill. With the Foggs and Passepartout at his side, he struggles to invent a future that values the individual and to protect that future from the forces of darkness. In doing so, Jules Verne discovers depths of courage and fortitude within himself that he never imagined.