This intriguing 41-page notebook, meticulously handwritten between 1891 and 1892, bears the pencil signature of Jules Verne on its inside cover. Its contents, however, are the diligent schoolwork of Jeanne Eliza Honorine Villalard, the granddaughter of Honorine de Viane Morel—the woman who became Jules Verne’s wife. This was Jeanne’s personal scholarly journal, a testament to the rigorous education valued within the extended Verne family circle.
The notebook’s subject is comprehensive agronomy, treated with serious academic intent. It frames agriculture as a strategic science, declaring, “Agriculture is a true industry that has to compete against foreign competition,” and laments that “one of the most detrimental causes to the progress of this science is the belief that it is not necessary to be educated to cultivate the land.”
The notebook’s value lies in its tangible connection. It is an object that was present within Jules Verne’s domestic sphere, signed by him, and used by a young student in his extended family. It reflects the kind of detailed, encyclopedic knowledge that fueled the Verne literary imagination, even if this particular document was a student's exercise.
Provenance: This notebook was passed down through the descendants of Jules Verne’s wife, Honorine. It was inherited from the owner’s grandmother, who was a custodian of this piece of family history in La Roche-Posay, France. It stands not as a Verne manuscript, but as a rare and personal artifact from his immediate familial world—a school journal that once sat on a desk in the orbit of the master storyteller himself.