VERNE, Jules. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1873.

Octavo. Later quarter charcoal morocco and blue cloth. Spine lettered in gilt with five raised bands. Top edge gilt. Frontispiece, viii, 303 pp., 109 illustrations throughout after drawings by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou, 8 pp. publisher's advertisements to rear reading: ". First edition in English — the first edition in any language other than French. Printed late 1872, title page dated 1873 as called for. 109-illustration variant with the associated indication points. Inscription to front free endpaper in ink: "To Jimmy, With love from Daddy. Xmas 1949."

Originally published as Vingt mille lieues sous les mers in the French periodical Magasin d'éducation et de récréation between 1869 and 1870, this English translation was done by Verne himself and published first in the UK in 1872-3. An immediate hit, this work grew to become one of Verne's most important and left a lasting legacy upon the world. First editions of this work are arguably the scarcest and most collectible among all of Verne's works.

The novel gave Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus to the literature of adventure and imagination, and in doing so helped to define a new kind of fiction in which the wonders of science and technology were not merely backdrop but the very substance of the story.

Famously, Verne did not simply predict the submarine; he created a romanticism around the concept and his ideas had a hand in the later realisation of real submarines. The first nuclear-powered submarine, launched in 1955, was named Nautilus in honour of his vessel. That the novel's premises — underwater travel, self-contained breathing apparatus, electrical power — have since become mundane reality only measures the distance Verne's imagination travelled ahead of his time.

This Sampson Low edition of 1873 is the first appearance of the novel in English, preceding the American edition, and is one of the two variant issues of the English first edition distinguished by illustration count: this copy, with 109 illustrations and 8 pages of advertisements, represents the scarcer of the two variants. The woodcut illustrations after the drawings of Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou — two of the foremost French illustrators of the period — were prepared for the French first edition and used unchanged here, and they remain among the most evocative images in the history of illustrated fiction.

This copy has been rebound into a later quarter morocco binding, sympathetically executed and well maintained, which has kept the contents in excellent condition. A Christmas gift inscription from a father to his son in 1949 adds a further layer of human history to a copy already rich in it.

Very good. Quarter charcoal morocco well preserved, spine gilt bright and bold. Cloth boards show age toning, some wearing at corners and along front fore-edge crease. A few markings. Binding tight. Endpapers and text block in excellent condition. Very minor foxing throughout.

This book is currently on display in the rare book department in our Paddington store. 

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