The famous French writer Jules Verne never visited the Canary Islands, but he was drawn to the archipelago’s growing fame and exoticism. This fascination led him to set his novel The Thompson Travel Agency there, where he meticulously describes an ascent of Mount Teide.
One of the chapters begins with: “On 11 June, at ten o’clock in the morning, the Seamew left the port of La Orotava. The programme fixed that departure for the 7th, at six o’clock; but having already been delayed by four days, Thompson saw no inconvenience in increasing it by four hours…”. This reference to the present-day Puerto de la Cruz in Tenerife introduces a novel published in 1907, with its plot mostly set in the Canary Islands, specifically Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and El Hierro.
The novel, about 250 pages long, is particularly interesting to the inhabitants of the islands, as it depicts them in great detail. The most exceptional aspect, however, is its author: Jules Verne, the celebrated French writer and visionary, known for classics such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days.
The Mystery of The Thompson Travel Agency
The history of this little-known novel is somewhat confusing, as it was published two years after Verne’s death. It was speculated that his son Michel finished it. Jules Verne never visited the Canary Islands, unlike other famous writers such as Agatha Christie who set stories there. Instead, Verne based his novel on Five Years’ Stay in the Canary Islands, written by his compatriot and renowned anthropologist René Verneau.
This novel corroborates the significance of the first European scientists and adventurers for the Canary Islands. From the 18th century onwards, they visited the archipelago and spread its singularities and beauties through their articles in the foreign press and their travel books. These early promotional campaigns were very effective in promoting tourism in the Canary Islands. By the time of Verne, at the end of the 19th century, travel was highly popular, and the Canary Islands, with their historical, geographical, and mythological references, were an exotic attraction for Central Europeans.
A Premonitory Tale
The Thompson Travel Agency was published in 1907, after Verne’s death in 1905. Michel Verne completed and published it in instalments in the newspaper Le Journal. Scholars believe that Jules Verne wrote the chapters set in the Canary Islands, as the last lines he left were those in which the travellers, setting sail from La Orotava, bid farewell to the Canary Archipelago.
Like other works by Verne, this one has a premonitory nature, not linked to scientific fiction but rather to the anticipation of tourism as the main economic driver of the Canary Islands. The plot involves two London travel companies, Baker and Thompson, competing to offer a “grandiose excursion” to the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands for a month on a steam yacht at the lowest price.
Thompson wins the competition, offering the trip for £40 all-inclusive aboard the Seamew. One of the protagonists, Robert Morgand, an impoverished French teacher, gets a job as a guide with the Thompson and Company Agency. The journey, with a hundred tourists, turns disastrous, ending with the boat shipwrecked.
Depiction of the Canary Islands
Despite mentioning typical aspects like gofio, the novel does not present a particularly pleasant image of the islands. Verne describes the Canary Islands as “a wild and dangerous place, with sulphur vents and carbon dioxide gas rising from the volcanic soil.” He claims that the Canaries were once part of Atlantis and describes the heat and mosquitoes as unbearable.
Farmers are depicted as so poor they live in caves, and “colonies of black slaves live in inaccessible areas and attack tourists.” With a premonitory note on the current debate about tourist overcrowding, one character mentions, “the Canarians look down on how foreigners are coming to their country in ever-increasing numbers.”
Verne’s narrative combines real facts with his imagination, placing the passengers at the mercy of “clouds of parasites” during an excursion to Mount Teide, “the highest volcano on the planet,” preventing them from sleeping.
Descriptions of Tenerife and Its Cities
Of Santa Cruz, Verne writes: “Built in an amphitheatre, with a belt of mountains, Santa Cruz is a seductive arrival and can, in this respect, hold its own in competition with Las Palmas.” He describes La Laguna as “a city in decay,” with “many monuments in ruins” and “grass greening the floors of its streets and even the roofs of its houses,” possibly referring to the verodes adorning old houses’ roofs.
Upon arriving in Tenerife, the novel’s protagonists head for the Orotava Valley to begin their ascent of Mount Teide, aiming to view the entire archipelago from its summit. The route proves more challenging than expected. Verne writes of the Orotava Valley: “It would be difficult to imagine a more harmonious spectacle.
To the right, the immense plain of the sea. On the left, a group of wild, black peaks, the last buttresses of the volcano, its children in the picturesque popular language. While the father, Teide itself, rises majestically in the background. Between these two grandiose limits, the Orotava Valley unfolds in an incredible ocean of greenery.”
Contribution to Canarian Tourism
Jules Verne, through his novel The Thompson Travel Agency , contributed to the promotion and fame of the touristic Canary Islands, depicting them in a blend of reality and imaginative narrative that highlighted their exotic appeal and potential as a tourist destination.
