Today we thought you might enjoy some titbits of intriguing Mikhail Strogoff trivia!

The influence of Jules Verne’s greatest novel isn’t just felt in literature and film, it is also referenced in several unexpected ways.

In France, the novel has left its mark on the landscape, with several streets, especially in Amiens and the Somme region, where Verne came from, named after our hero, such as Boulevard Michel Strogoff in Longueau and Rue Michel Strogoff in Cergy.

Charmingly, there’s also a beautiful red rose variety named after him, with this poetic tribute attached: ‘Who better than Jules Verne’s famous adventurer, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, stoically enduring heat and cold and thirst, to incarnate the spirit of this rosebush with its exceptional qualities?’

But perhaps the most surprising tribute comes not from France, but from the US, where the small desert city of Marfa in Texas owes its unusual name to one of the great characters in the novel: Mikhail Strogoff’s tough, indomitable mother, Marfa.