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==Biography==
Born in [[Chartres]], [[Eure-et-Loir]], Hetzel studied law in [[Strasbourg]], and founded a publishing company in 1837. He was the publisher of [[Honoré de Balzac]], whose ''Comédie humaine'' began to be appear in 1841, and of [[Victor Hugo]] and [[Émile Zola]]. In 1843, he founded the ''Nouveau magazine des enfants'' ("New Children's Magazine"). Hetzel was a well-known republican, and in 1848 he became chief of cabinet for [[Alphonse de Lamartine]] (then minister of Foreign Affairs), and afterward for the minister of the Navy. He went into self-imposed exile in Belgium after the coup d'Étatétat which ushered in the [[Second French Empire|Second Empire]], and there he continued his political and editiorialeditorial activities, notably by clandestinely publishing Hugo's ''Les Châtiments'', a harsh pamphlet against the Second Empire.
When the political regime was liberalisedchanged in France, he returned to Francehome and published [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon|Proudhon]] and [[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]]. AAn notableimportant edition of the tales by [[Charles Perrault]], illustrated by [[Gustave Doré]], dates from this period. He founded the ''Bibliothèque illustrée des Familles'' ("The Family Illustrated Library"), which was renamed to ''Magasin d'éducation et de récréation'' ("Education and Entertainment Magazine") in 1864. His ideagoal was to have scientists, authors, and illustrators collaborating to create educativeeducational works. Infor the ambientwhole [[positivism]]family. of the time, the position was not an easy one.
HisHetzel's fame comes mostly for his editions of the ''[[Voyages Extraordinaires]]'' ("Extraordinary Journeys") by [[Jules Verne]]. The stories were originally published in biweekly chapters as a series in his ''Magasin''. Once all chapters of a story were printed there, the story would appear in bookformbook form. Typically this happened towards the end of the year so the books could be purchased as Christmas presents for older children. Originally, there were three editions: one economical, without illustrations; another one in small format, with a few illustrations; and a third one in a bigger in-octavo format and richly illustrated. It is the last edition that is now very popular among book collectors.
Hetzel discovered Jules Verne, but scholars still debate howto farwhat extent Hetzel "made" Verne, or if it was Verne evenwho "made" Hetzel's publishing career. BothEach benefittedbenefited from the other, and their relationship went beyond that of author and publisher.
Hetzel rejected Verne's 1863 manuscript for ''[[Paris in the 20th Century|Paris in the Twentieth Century]]'' because he thought it presented a vision of the future that was far too negative and unbelievable for contemporary audiences, though to many present-day scholars the story was remarkably accurate in its predictions. Verne locked the manuscript away and no longer wrote futuristic, [[dystopia]]n stories. ''Paris in the Twentieth Century'' was first published in [[France]] in 1994.
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