Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

A frigate hunting a sea monster is sunk by it, and three survivors find themselves inside a submarine commanded by a man who has renounced the land and everyone on it. Verne worked from the engineering of his own decade — electricity, compressed air, a hull of steel plates — and got so much right that navies later borrowed the name Nautilus. Nemo is the first of the great haunted engineers: everything he shows his guests is a wonder, and everything he does is revenge.