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First Edition in English of Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days"
VERNE, Jules. The Tour of the World in Eighty Days. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, [July] 1873.
First American edition and first edition in English, first issue, with no mention of the translator, George M. Towle, on the title-page. Small octavo (5 13/16 x 4 1/8 inches; 148 x 105 mm.). vii,[1, blank],[9]-291,[1, blank] pp. Frontispiece illustration of "Le Saint Michel" (included in pagination), with tissue guard. Title printed in red and black.
Original terra cotta fine diagonal-ribbed cloth with covers and spine decoratively stamped in blind, front cover pictorially stamped (reproducing the frontispiece illustration) and lettered in gilt, and spine lettered in gilt. Original green-black coated endpapers. All edges stained red. Minor rubbing to corners and spine extremities, just slightly skewed. Tiny tear (5/16 inch) to upper blank margin of B8 (pp. 31/32), where corner was folded down. Previous owner's pencilled presentation inscription on front free endpaper. Otherwise a near fine copy. Housed in a brown cloth slipcase.
This famous tale of the circumnavigation of the globe by Phileas Fogg and Passepartout was first published in French in 1873 as Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours. James R. Osgood published this unillustrated edition in English by early July of that year. It was reprinted in 1873, 1874, and 1875, with the same collation and size, but with the added note on the title-page "Translated by George M. Towle." Within a few months, Osgood published a more elaborate illustrated edition with the title Around the World in Eighty Days. The English edition (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low & Searle, 1874) was not published until November of 1873, but is dated 1874. "In an unusual twist, this American translation crossed the Atlantic for use by Sampson Low in England" (Taves and Michaluk).
Myers 54. Taves and Michaluk V011.
Price: $1,350
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