The Underground City published in April 1877. Covering a time span of over ten years, this novel follows the fortunes of the mining community of Aberfoyle near Stirling, Scotland. Receiving a letter from an old colleague, mining engineer James Starr sets off for the old Aberfoyle mine, thought to have been mined out ten years earlier. Starr finds mine overman Simon Ford and his family living in a cottage deep inside the mine; he is astonished to find that Ford has made a discovery of the presence of a large vein of coal.From the outset, mysterious and unexplained happenings start to occur around the main characters, attributed initially to goblins and firemaidens. Soon after the discovery of the new vein of coal, the community is revitalized with a whole town growing up around the underground lake called Loch Malcolm. Suspicious of a malevolent force at work, Harry continues his explorations of the cavern system, where down a deep shaft, he discovers a young orphan girl named Nell. Over the course of the next few years Nell is adopted by Simon and Madge but reveals nothing of where she came from.

儒勒·凡尔纳的作品一向以科幻小说呈现在读者面前。《地下城》是其又一部力作。文中向我们讲述了一个采矿的故事。通过一系列的构思和巧妙地布局，将地下的采矿生活呈现在读者的面前。主人公詹姆斯·斯塔尔为了实现自己的采矿梦想，经过多年的不懈努力，最后终于实现了自己的梦想。情节读来激动人心。