Jules Verne was born in the seaport of Nantes, he was trained to follow in his father's footsteps as a lawyer, but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage.

His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

Iris Samartzi is a children's book illustrator and an art teacher. Her work has received many awards, including the 2016 International Compostela Prize for Picture Books, the Greek State Picture Book Award (2012, 2016) and the Greek IBBY Award (2012, 2015, 2016 and 2017). When she is not illustrating books, she runs art workshops for children. She lives and works in Athens, Greece. She is nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2020.