Julio Verne

The marriage of Mr. Anselmo de los Tilos. Julio Verne

Long before writing his most famous novels, Jules Verne took pleasure in writing during his younger days. Several were the genres that, in his youth, the young Frenchman captured under his pen. Plays, poems, short stories, the odd article. All of them already showed - although most of these works were not published until years later - what would be the Verne of The Extraordinary Travels, because many of them showed the ideas and style that his masterful entry would provide him shortly after. world of letters. In the mid-1950s, marriage was a major concern for Verne. To his mother, who constantly talks about marriage plans, he responds in a cynical tone, reminding her that the unhappy loves of his youth were so alive that they prevented him from contracting conjugal ties. It is around this time that Verne becomes a member of a Parisian group, "The Eleven Without a Woman", made up of inveterate bachelors. It is Verne himself, who makes fun of many of his friends when they desert and get ready to marry. For him, every marriage is mocked. The mockery and the ironic tone, sometimes buffoon, are also present in one of those stories of youth, which Verne titled The Marriage of Señor Anselmo de los Tilos. The date of writing of the story has not yet been determined. Olivier Dumas locates it in the year 1855, relying on the fact that Verne had completed his twenty-seven springs this year, that is, the age attributed to his marquis. This would place us exactly two years before their marriage. On the other hand, another of the scholars of the Vernian work, Daniel Compère, locates it two or three years later. The truth is that the manuscript, even when it is signed, does not have a drafting date.