Verne's dystopian vision of Paris in 1960 — ruled by finance, speed, and machinery.

Young Michel Dufrénoy, a poet, wanders through a cold, electric metropolis.

Science and industry dominate; literature and beauty are obsolete.

He fails to find love, meaning, or recognition in a mechanized society.

The story ends in isolation and despair — the poet buried beneath technological triumph.

Verne’s "lost" novel: a prophetic elegy for imagination in an age of machines.

electric cars, gasoline-powered engines, high-speed trains, glass and steel skyscrapers, underground subways, air conditioning, elevators, automated security systems, fax machines, calculators and early computers, electric lighting, mass advertising, global communication networks, stock-market dominance, commercialized education, bureaucratic universities, gender inequality in the workforce, and the marginalization of the arts and humanities ...