An Irishman’s Diary: The extraordinary journey of Jules Verne’s Irish orphan

One of Jules Verne's lesser-known works is P'tit-Bonhomme. Known as the father of science fiction, Verne is celebrated for his fantastical tales recounting all sorts of mysterious voyages, but P'tit-Bonhomme is an adventure story set in 19th-century Ireland. It follows the fortunes of a young Irish orphan boy named Mick. The book was translated into English under the title Foundling Mick, although "little fellow" might be a more direct translation.

Jules Verne was born in the bustling port city of Nantes in France in 1828.

Travel excited him from an early age and at just 11-years-old, he planned to set out on a boat bound for India as a cabin boy.

Luckily, his father learned about this plan and caught up with him before the boat had set sail. Young Verne vowed to travel only in his dreams from then on.

In his books, colourful characters such as Phileas Fogg and Captain Nemo travel to exotic locations in hot air balloons, rockets and submarines testing man’s knowledge of the world and beyond, and his ability to travel around it.

P'tit-Bonhomme is one of more than 50 books that make up the series, Extraordinary Journeys. This amazing collection, which includes such innovative works as From the Earth to the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, was aimed primarily at the youth market. The books were as much educational as they were entertaining, as readers learned about world geography and history, and advances in science and society, while ostensibly following the story of an adventurer.

It is in the town of Westport that we first meet the eponymous Foundling Mick. The year is 1875 and two-year-old Mick has been abandoned by his natural parents and is being exploited by a cruel puppet master, the first of a series of carers who mistreat and exploit him.

Dickensian

There are undeniable shades of Dickens throughout the story as the boy is passed through a succession of cruel surrogate parents. For instance, after Westport he is sent to a school for orphans in Galway. There, he is dressed in rags, lives in appalling conditions and is given barely enough food to survive.

Verne was a great admirer of Dickens. He once said that he had read all of Dickens’ work 10-times over.

As the reader follows Mick’s peripatetic adventures around the country, they learn about the archaeological and geographical landscape of Ireland. Facts about Ireland’s physical size and population and the names of Irish cities, towns, streets, buildings, lakes and rivers are included to add a degree of authenticity to the story.

In Galway, Mick visits Galway cathedral and swims in the sea at Salthill. When he was briefly taken into the care of an actress named Anna Watson in Limerick, Mick lodged in the Royal George Hotel and the actress starred in a play in the city’s Theatre Royal.

Research

As we progress through Mick’s life story, Verne deals with some of the pressing social issues of the time: landlordism, eviction and emigration. In spite of the many obstacles placed in his way, Foundling Mick proves to be an extremely resilient character and manages to get some work where he could.

He is an honest, industrious and caring young man and when we leave him at age 15, the enterprising fellow has made his fortune and has helped all those who helped him during his lifetime. This includes the Co Kerry farm family who took him in when he was abandoned and showed him real affection for the first time in his life.

Verne never actually visited Ireland and all his descriptions were taken from books. He must have done a good amount of research to get the history and geography right as young Mick travels all around the country from Cork to Dublin and Belfast.

The publication and translation history of P'tit-Bonhomme is very interesting. It was first translated into English as Foundling Mick in 1895. In the 1930s, a revised version was published by the Educational Company of Ireland under the title, A Lad of Grit. In 1959, Radio Éireann broadcast a dramatisation of the story over nine weeks under the title Gossoon. The most recent English-language edition was published by the Royal Irish Academy in 2008.

It seems that the book is rediscovered every few years. Maybe it’s time for another look at this curious book?