Two Men on a Submarine Hull — Twenty Thousand Leagues, Neuville & Riou

Like other celebrated engravings from the original Hetzel editions of Jules Verne's works, this wood-engraved plate by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou captures a tense, windswept moment aboard the exterior hull of the Nautilus. Two men — one standing boldly, one crouching — wrestle with heavy rope or cable on the low, wave-washed deck of the submarine, seabirds wheeling in the grey sky above. The desolate horizontal silhouette of the vessel's superstructure anchors a scene of grim maritime adventure.