Jules VERNE

Jules VERNE
Vingt mille lieues sous les mers [Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]
Jules Hetzel | Paris 1879 | 18.5 x 28 cm | publisher's binding
New edition. 111 drawings by De Neuville and Riou.
So called “Aux deux éléphants” (“To two elephants”) red publisher’s boards (plate signed “Souze, Lenègre binder” at the bottom). Lenègre b style second board, with octagonal blind tooled button. These boards coexisted alongside similar boards in 1879, but were bound by Engel. Beautiful first plate, very fresh, with shiny golds. Good spine. Good second plate with some tiny stains. The spine-ends are in position and are barely sunken. Corners straight and pointed. Scattered foxing. Very beautiful copy.
One of the legendary titles of Jules Verne’s production. Here the author has created a complex evil figure, that of Captain Némo. Of all of the author’s novels, this one took one of the longest periods to write; it will generate a great number of cinema adaptations, the first of which was by Méliès in 1907, and the most famous was in 1954 by Richard Fleisher.

Edition illustrated with 41 drawings and a map by Montaut and 44 drawings by Emile Bayard and de Neuville.
Hetzel publisher's boards “with a fan and an elephant” in full red cloth signed A. Lenègre, first polychrome board signed Engel, type “i” second board as indicated by Jauzac, spine with a lighthouse, original blue endpapers, all edges gilt.
Original blue endpapers marginally faded as is usual and reinforced with blue adhesive tape. Spine faded all over.
Ex-dono in ink on the first pastedown endpaper.
De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes (From the Earth to the Moon, direct in 97 Hours 20 minutes) is a novel of anticipation. It relates how, after the end of the Civil War, an association of artillerymen and scientists linked to the military industry attempt to send a shell manned by three men to the moon. De la Terre à la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon) is the first part of a diptych, which ends with Autour de la Lune (Around the Moon).