Books

New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co., 1875. First American edition of the second installment in Verne's Mysterious Island trilogy. Octavo, original publisher's green cloth decorated in gilt, illustrated. Translated from the French by W.H.G. Kingston. In near fine condition. A very sharp example. Often referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction", French novelist Jules Verne had a wide influence on on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. 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). Verne's The Mysterious Island is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of…

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'.