Books

New York: Scribner's & Sons, 1880. [Science Fiction Adventure] FIRST US EDITION. Octavo (19 x 14cm), pp.viii; 304; [10]. With a frontispiece and 49 (of 50) engraved plates by Ferat. Publisher's purple cloth with gilt titles and black decoration to spines and uppers, bevelled edges, coated yellow endpapers. No inscriptions, paper joints intact, contents mostly clean (a few spots and reading marks within), cloth a little rubbed, frayed to spine ends, spine toned. A very good copy. The second of three parts, in which a group of Yankee prisoners of war escape by balloon from the siege of Richmond during the American Civil War (perhaps recalling the use of balloons during the siege of Paris in 1871), and end up on a remote Pacific island which, after a series of unlikely adventures, turns out to be Captain Nemo's secret lair (of Twenty-Thousand Leagues' fame). First published in 1875 and translated into English the same year.

In 'The Mysterious Island', Jules Verne combines adventure and elements of science fiction to tell the story of a group of castaways who endeavor to survive and solve the mystery of their abandoned locale. Using ingenuity and science, the protagonists uncover secrets including the existence of Captain Nemo, the enigmatic figure from 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'.