Walter James Miller

(A compilation of Miller's several interviews with Vonnegut was published by Caedmon Audio in 2006.) The author of two published collections of poetry (Making an Angel, 1977, Love's Mainland, 2001), Miller's verse drama Joseph in the Pit was produced off-Broadway in 1993 and 2002. A pioneering figure of modern Jules Verne studies, Miller's 1965 Washington Square Press edition of Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas included both the first unabridged English translation of the novel and the first scholarly discussion of what he termed the problem of "the two Jules Vernes." European readers, Miller observed, Miller's analysis of the abridgment and mistranslation of Verne, and his call for accurate and complete English renderings, initiated a major reassessment by English-speaking critics of Verne's importance, and is credited with fostering the publication of numerous new English editions of Verne and the emergence of Verne studies as a serious academic discipline in the US and UK. Miller's scholarly editions of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1976), From the Earth to the Moon (1978), and (with Frederick Paul Walter) The Meteor Hunt (2006) were the first annotated editions of those novels in any language. His preface to the first English translation of Verne's The Mighty Orinoco (2002) has been described as the best critical commentary on this novel in French or English. Miller died before learning that the North American Jules Verne Society had decided to dedicate the fourth volume in its Palik Series of first-time Verne translations to him; the book dedicated to Miller, The Count of Chanteleine: A Tale of the French Revolution. Miller's last essay on Verne had appeared posthumously in the first volume in series, The Marriage of a Marquis, published in 2011.

• Three Poems – A mini-lecture, from WNYC archives. • of Champions – Miller interviews Kurt Vonnegut, from WNYC archives. • – Miller interviews Kurt Vonnegut, from WNYC archives.