French writer Jules Gabriel Verne was 34 years old when he found his true calling and turned from an author of comic plays into a scientific novelist. Over 40 years of continuous literary work, he wrote over 80 volumes of works in a variety of genres. There are few languages left on earth into which Jules Verne has not been translated. He is one of the most international writers. The total number of copies of his books distributed throughout the globe breaks all records and probably amounts to more than one hundred million. Several tens of millions of them have been released in Russian alone.

Marko Vovchok is the pseudonym of Maria Alexandrovna Vilinskaya, after her first husband - Markovich. Born into a Russian noble family. Second cousin of D.I. Pisarev. Under the influence of her future husband, ethnographer A. Markovich, she became interested in Ukrainian culture and language and became a Ukrainian writer. Regarded as a classic. Most of her works are written in Russian; she also wrote in French. Jules Verne delegated to her the right to an authorized translation of his novels (she translated 15 novels by J. Verne).