Five Weeks in a Balloon - Every Saturday; First Verne English Appearance
by Verne, Jules - first English Language appearance
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Good Plus
- Seller
-
Baldwinsville, New York, United States
Item Price
NZ$2,778.27NZ$2,500.44
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Boston: Fields & Osgood, 1868. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Good Plus. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Boston: Fields & Osgood, 1868 [hardbound Volume 6, July to December 1868 of the magazine]. Taves & Michaluk V001. 10.25" x 6.75", 828 pp. Ex-Tacoma Public Library; half black calf with marbled paper boards. Quite scuffed, particularly at the corners and hinges. Pages are age toned, some are wrinkled, one page is torn but complete [not a page within the Verne issue]. Strongly bound. Somewhat worn (see scans) but still quite strong, better than Good, just short of very good by reason of one or two too many scuffs. Fascinating and quite rare Jules Verne English-language first/first. Just a few pages buried within this hefty collection of six months of Every Saturday: A Journal of Choice Reading - a Fields & Osgood double-column weekly issue - treat Verne's first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon. At the time, the magazine editors were apparently of the opinion that Verne [who was then largely unknown to the American public] was describing actual events, rather than fictitious ones, in his tale of African adventures undertaken via the vehicle of a hot-air balloon. Here, in the five pages of this first appearance (see scan of the first one), only certain passages of the novel occur, along with a synopsis by the apparently intrigued editor, who concludes with the line: "All I can say is, that it was shameful of our newspapers, which profess to record everything that passes, to treat this important event with such utter silence." Verne is even mis-identified by the flummoxed staff, who refer to him as "M. Jules Berne." For this title, this piece is exceeded in English-language rarity only by its own softbound variant - i.e., the same piece not bound together in six-monthly tomes such as this, which was the habit of the era, which few have presumably largely perished. Taves & Michaluk at V001 note that "The London" sourcing reference for the Verne article remains unknown. See all scans. L53n
Synopsis
Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen is an adventure novel by Jules Verne. It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Singularity Rare & Fine (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 000431
- Title
- Five Weeks in a Balloon - Every Saturday; First Verne English Appearance
- Author
- Verne, Jules - first English Language appearance
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Good Plus
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Publisher
- Fields & Osgood
- Place of Publication
- Boston
- Date Published
- 1868
- Pages
- 828
- Size
- 4to - over 9¾" - 12&
- Keywords
- [science fiction, Jules Verne, antiquarian, adventure, exploration, hot air balloon, lighter than air, aviation, sci-fi, First Appearance, First novel, first Edition Classics, General, General, Aviation
- Bookseller catalogs
- Science Fiction; Classics of Fiction From All Eras;
Terms of Sale
Singularity Rare & Fine
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About the Seller
Singularity Rare & Fine
Biblio member since 2005
Baldwinsville, New York
About Singularity Rare & Fine
Rare and unique finds of all descriptions; it's the uniqueness, beauty or inherent fascination of the piece which places it here at singularity rare & fine.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Marbled Paper
- Decorative colored paper that imitates marble with a veined, mottled, or swirling pattern. Commonly used as the end papers or...
- Calf
- Calf or calf hide is a common form of leather binding. Calf binding is naturally a light brown but there are ways to treat the...