Jules Verne Sea Serpent Encounter — Riou Engraving, 1870s

A small wooden vessel pitches in choppy seas as its crew stands transfixed — ahead of them, an enormous undulating sea serpent cuts a sinuous path across the open ocean, its massive coiled body visible above the waves before vanishing into the horizon. The hand-colored wood engraving captures the sublime terror of the encounter: dwarfed sailors, churning whitecaps, and a creature of impossible scale stretching toward infinity beneath a luminous, storm-threatened sky.