TICKET NO. "9672 by Verne, Jules - 1899

1899. Translated from the French by Laura E. Kendall. Chicago: M.A. Donohue & Co., n.d. 3 pp undated ads. Original green cloth pictorially decorated in black, light blue and peach.

First American hardbound edition. UN BILLET DE LOTERIE was first published in France in 1886, and that same year George Munro of New York was the first to publish this in English -- in two self-wrappered volumes of his "Seaside Library" (the first volume was published by July 1886, and the second by December 1886). In between these two (in August), Sampson Low published the first British edition (as THE LOTTERY TICKET). Munro being, of course, a pirate publisher, his business went downhill fast after the passage of the International Copyright Act in 1891 (clearly George did not offer enough "soft money" to his legislators). His "Seaside Library" publications became the property of Donohue of Chicago; although T&M says that "by the turn of the century, M.A. Donohue of Chicago" published this book, they did not use that imprint for several years thereafter, so the exact year is uncertain. There were no other American editions of this Verne tale between the Munro two-volume wrappered first and this Donahue one -- making this the first American hardbound edition. Both the front cover and the spine portray lighter-than-air flying machines. The usual problem for this book is the erosion of the peach-colored pigment used on the binding, and this copy is no exception: although the book has very little overall wear, the peach is entirely missing from the spine (in fact it appears never to have been applied there) and partly from the front cover. The endpapers are cracked, and the "gilt" lettering on the spine is oxidized. Taves & Michaluk V031; also see Myers 52.