1890 Rare Book - Jules Verne, Off on a Comet! A Journey through Planetary Space.
(description)
Author: Jules Verne. Translated from the French by Edward Roth.
Title: OFF ON A COMET! A Journey through Planetary Space.
Publisher: Philadelphia, David McKay, no date (circa 1890).
Language: Text in English
Size: 7.5" X 5.5".
Pages: 472 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good original decorative full-cloth binding in light green with brown and gilt-stamped designs on the cover and spine, showing an elaborate comet-inspired motif with floral details (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, and clean, inner hinge of the first endpaper is slightly worn but still tight - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with 36 full-page black-and-white illustrations, including detailed engravings depicting scenes from the story, such as astronomical settings and encounters in space. The illustrations add depth to the narrative and showcase the imaginative journey through space as envisioned by Verne. Notable illustrations include scenes titled “Approaching Jupiter,” “Halley’s Comet in 1835,” and “Donati’s Comet.”
Estimate: (USD 300 - USD 350)
The book: Rare and attractive edition of Off on a Comet (French: Hector Servadac) an 1877 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story starts with a comet that touches the Earth in its flight and collects a few small chunks of it. Some forty people of various nations and ages are condemned to a two-year-long journey on the comet. They form a mini-society and cope with the comet's hostile environment (mostly the cold)...
The author: Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. Verne was born to bourgeois parents in the seaport of Nantes, where he was trained to follow in his father's footsteps as a lawyer but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages Extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).