In 1863, Jules Verne wrote a novel called "Paris in the Twentieth Century" that imagined a future city filled with gas-powered cars, electric street lighting, maglev-style high-speed trains, fax-like communication, a record industry, and something resembling the internet. His publisher rejected the manuscript as pessimistic and artistically weak, so it went into storage instead of print. The book remained unknown for more than a century until Verne’s great-grandson discovered the manuscript in a safe in 1989. It was finally published in 1994.
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