before he became the famous novelist we know today from , learned his profession writing for the stage. Many of those youthful plays have been discovered for the first time, and three are translated into English for the first time in . In , Verne offers a humorous account of a nautical adventure interrupted by pirates. In , he relates a love affair between the dancer, and the painter Jacques-Louis David, creating a realistic historical background as well as a deeply-felt romance. And in , Verne draws upon the world of the Arabian Nights to tell how the Sultan and the story-telling Scheherazade are finally united in marriage.