Captain Nemo

Captain Nemo ( NAY-moh; also known as Prince Dakkar) is a character created by the French novelist Jules Verne (1828–1905). Nemo appears in two of Verne's science-fiction books, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1875). He also makes a brief appearance in a play written by Verne with the collaboration of Adolphe d'Ennery, Journey Through the Impossible (1882). Nemo is a mysterious figure. Though of unknown nationality in the first book, he is described as the son of an Indian raja in the second book. A scientific visionary, he roams the depths of the seas in his submarine, the Nautilus, which was assembled from parts manufactured in several different countries, then shipped to a covert address. The captain is consumed by a hunger for vengeance and hatred of imperialism; Verne included references to anti-imperialist uprisings, including the Kościuszko Uprising and Indian Rebellion of 1857, in the various backstories of Nemo. Nemo has appeared in various film adaptations of Verne's novels, where he has been portrayed by actors such as James Mason, Herbert Lom, Patrick Stewart, Naseeruddin Shah, Ben Cross, Omar Sharif and Michael Caine. He has also been appropriated by other authors for their own novels, including Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Philip José Farmer's The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, Kevin J. Anderson's Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius, Thomas F. Monteleone's The Secret Sea and Howard Rodman's The Great Eastern.