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First edition in English, US issue, bound using the British sheets following publication in London slightly earlier in 1872; the British title page and the American cancel title are both post-dated 1873. This binding is in the rarest variant colour, salmon pink: "Most of the surviving copies [were] bound in green cloth, but single copies of blue, maroon, and an odd salmon colour exist" (Edwards). It has the requisite points of first state, the binding giving "sea" without the plural, the pictorial blocking on the front cover with a jellyfish rather than Captain Nemo, page 142 misnumbered as 442, and the text concluding "The End". This attractive production was designated for subscribers only and contains on average one plate for every three pages of text. It was traditionally thought that a tiny number of copies of Osgood's US issue survived the Great Boston Fire of 1872, a view challenged by the number of copies extant. George M. Smith subsequently reset the text and published the first American edition (1873), which is much more common. Verne's aquatic classic was inspired by his viewing of the model of the submarine Plongeur at the 1867 Exposition Universelle. He imagined the novel's Nautilus as a "masterpiece containing masterpieces", the futuristic vessel being capable of an underwater journey almost twice the Earth's circumference in length, powered by electricity sourced from sodium batteries, fitted for combat, and furnished with grandiose exhibition rooms for recreation. The work was first serialized in Magasin d'éducation et de récréation from 1869 to 1870 and published in book form in 1870. It remains among the most popular of Verne's novels and of imaginative journeys generally. READ MORE Octavo. Original salmon pink cloth, spine and front cover lettered and pictorially blocked in gilt and black within decorative frames, front cover with the jellyfish vignette, brown endpapers. Wood-engraved frontispiece with tissue guard, 109 wood-engraved plates, by Hildibrand after Edouard Riou and Alphonse de Neuville. Spine lightly faded, faint ring-stain to bright front cover, rubbing to extremities, book block a little shaken, foxing to edges, clean overall. A very attractive example in the rare original cloth.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, published in 1870. The story tells of Captain Nemo and the underwater adventures of his submarine, the Nautilus, as it goes around the world beneath the sea.