6 h 11 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the same fortune could build a city of freedom—and a city bent on making weapons?
A strange inheritance gives Doctor Sarrasin and Professor Schultze the means to build rival worlds. Sarrasin founds France-Ville, where health, light and freedom guide every plan. Schultze creates Stahlstadt, a steel city of weapons and obedience. Their shared fortune becomes a contest over what knowledge and industry should serve.
Young engineer Marcel Bruckmann enters Stahlstadt under a false name to discover what Schultze is planning. His loyalty to Sarrasin's family—and his love for Jeanne Sarrasin—give the danger a personal edge. Behind the factory walls, strict control and a weapon of terrifying size turn rival ideas into an urgent threat.
What you’ll discover
- Two visions of progress Explore the clash between knowledge that serves ordinary people and industry built for control.
- A spy among steelworks Follow Marcel into Stahlstadt, where he must conceal his identity while seeking Schultze's plans.
- A city built for health Discover Sarrasin's dream of a town planned by doctors and engineers to keep people well.
- An inheritance with consequences Begin with Sharp's strange legal case, then watch a vast fortune take two opposing shapes.
- Suspense with human stakes Feel how Marcel's love and loyalty sharpen his determination to protect France-Ville from danger.
Who will love it
For readers who love early science fiction, stories of rival ideas, and spy plots with a ticking threat, where cities embody competing visions of science and society.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A will makes two rivals heirs
- Each heir builds a city of his own
- Marcel Bruckmann decides to spy
- Inside Stahlstadt, nothing is free
- Two ideas of progress face each other
- How Verne builds the suspense
Who’s who
- Doctor SarrasinA kindly French physician who inherits half the fortune and founds France-Ville, a model town built for health, light and freedom.
- Professor SchultzeA proud German scholar who inherits the other half and builds Stahlstadt, a steel city of weapons run under his total control.
- Marcel BruckmannA quick-tempered young engineer from Alsace who takes a false name and enters Stahlstadt to find out what Schultze is planning.
- Octave SarrasinThe doctor's son, a loyal friend to Marcel who shares the family's worries about the danger growing in the steel city.
- Jeanne SarrasinThe doctor's daughter, whom Marcel loves and whose family and home in France-Ville he is determined to protect.
- SharpThe English lawyer who handles the Begum's estate and finds the two heirs who must share her fortune.
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- Audiobook
- 6 h 11 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Read and hear Die 500 Millionen der Begum in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Die 500 Millionen der Begum
by Jules Verne · 1879
Marcel Bruckmann enters a steel city under a false name to uncover a weapons project that threatens his loved ones.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Begum's Fortune is a short adventure novel by Jules Verne, published in French in 1879. Two men from rival nations inherit a vast Indian fortune, and each decides to use his half to build a city that shows his idea of how people should live.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A will makes two rivals heirs
The story opens in England, where a lawyer named Sharp is handling a very strange case. The Begum of Ragginahra, an Indian woman, has died, leaving a fortune of five hundred million francs. The money must go to the nearest living descendant of a Frenchman named Langevol, who had fled to India long ago and married into her family.
Sharp finds two claimants. One is Doctor Sarrasin, a kindly French physician who cares deeply about public health. The other is Professor Schultze, a German scholar of great learning and enormous self-regard. Both can prove they descend from the same ancestor.
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What is The Begum's Fortune about?
It tells of two men who inherit a huge fortune and use it to build rival cities. One city is a model of health and freedom, the other a steel town of weapons. A young engineer goes in as a spy.
Who are Sarrasin and Schultze in The Begum's Fortune?
Doctor Sarrasin is a French physician who values public health and builds France-Ville. Professor Schultze is a German scholar who values power and builds Stahlstadt. They share the same ancestor and split the fortune.
When did Jules Verne write The Begum's Fortune?
It was published in French in 1879, a few years after the Franco-Prussian War. That war and the loss of Alsace shape the story's mood and its harsh picture of the German professor.
The author
Jules Verne
1828–1905 · French adventure novelist
Jules Verne was a French writer born in Nantes in 1828. He lived in Paris and later in Amiens, where he died in 1905. His novels include Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).
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