Les enfants du capitaine Grant

Rare first edition. First volume published on 6 May 1867, the second on 27 July and the third the next year (28 January 1868). All of 18° format are first editions of Verne's novels.

Contemporary brown half shagreen bindings, spines with four raised bands ruled in black and decorated with double black panels featuring central gilt floral tools, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, two upper corners slightly bumped, speckled edges, contemporary bindings.

A handsome copy attractively housed in its contemporary bindings.

This first appearance of the text in book form was Jules Verne's preferred format, as Jauzac notes, instead of the more famous gilded publisher's bindings: "Verne cared little, it seems, for the outward appearance of his works. Likewise, illustration added to the text struck him as inessential. He would in fact give friends copies of the unillustrated 18° first edition [like this copy] rather than the large 8° volumes - admittedly more expensive! Without being able to state it as fact, it is probable that the author kept in his library only these small 18° editions of his Voyages extraordinaires, which he would always count by the volume (two for a work in two parts) and took pride in announcing a total of over a hundred volumes".