1908 Scarce Art Deco Cover - Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne

An attractive vintage edition of Jules Verne's Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon, featuring a striking Art Nouveau-style red cloth binding and a beautifully coloured frontispiece depicting the departure of the great Amazonian raft.

Author: Jules Verne.
Title: Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon (The Giant Raft, Part I).
Publisher: London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited, circa 1908.
Edition: Early twentieth-century British Author's Copyright Edition, in the scarce publisher's Art Deco decorative red cloth.
Language: English.
Pages: 244 pages.
Size: 7.5 x 5 inches.
Binding: Very good original bright red cloth binding, with striking black Art Nouveau-style floral and geometric decoration across the front cover and spine. Gilt lettering to the spine. Light rubbing and minor wear to the extremities, with a little creasing at the spine head. The decorative cover remains exceptionally appealing, with strong colour and well-preserved ornamentation. Uncommon. Protected in a removable mylar cover. 
Content: Very good overall, with foxing and age-related discolouration, principally affecting the preliminary pages, title page, and some final leaves, as shown in the photographs. The main body of the text is generally clean, with occasional light spotting. The binding is sound, and the pages are well preserved. Complete as issued for Part I, ending on page 244 with a reference to the sequel, The Cryptogram.
Illustrations: Complete with the coloured frontispiece, Start of the Jangada, showing the immense floating raft setting out upon the Amazon River.

Estimate: USD $200–225.

The book: Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon is the first part of Jules Verne's celebrated Amazonian adventure, originally published in French in 1881 as La Jangada: Huit cents lieues sur l'Amazone. Set amid the extraordinary landscapes of nineteenth-century South America, the story follows Joam Garral and his family as they embark upon a remarkable journey down the Amazon River aboard an enormous floating raft, or jangada. Conceived almost as a travelling village, the raft carries its passengers, their possessions, and an entire household into a world of tropical forests, unfamiliar wildlife, and unexpected dangers.

Behind the apparent tranquillity of this river voyage lies a mystery involving Garral's concealed past, a grave accusation, and a cryptographic document whose meaning becomes central to the unfolding drama. Verne combines geographical observation, scientific curiosity, family loyalties, and suspense in a characteristic example of his Voyages extraordinaires. This handsome British edition is particularly desirable for its vivid red publisher's cloth, with its elegant Art Nouveau-style decoration, and its atmospheric coloured frontispiece entitled Start of the Jangada. The volume contains the complete first part of the story, which continues in The Cryptogram.

The author: Jules Verne (1828–1905) was one of the most influential French novelists of the nineteenth century and a pioneering figure in adventure and speculative fiction. His celebrated Voyages extraordinaires series brought together scientific imagination, geographical exploration, technological innovation, and thrilling storytelling, introducing generations of readers to extraordinary journeys across the globe and beyond.

Among his best-known works are Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Around the World in Eighty Days, and The Mysterious Island. In Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon, Verne turns his imagination toward the vast waterways and forests of South America, creating an adventure that reflects both the geographical interests and the literary sensibilities of his age. His enduring popularity has made early and attractively bound editions of his works especially appealing to collectors of classic adventure literature.