Jules Verne - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - 1880

"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne - Sampson Low, London - ca 1880 first thus edition - 18cmx15cm - condition: original publisher's binding, with some rubbing and wear along edges, plate mounted to cover, ffep cut, some loose plates. Uncommon ill. edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (French: Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers) is a science fiction adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne. It was originally serialised from March 1869 to June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's French fortnightly periodical, the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation. A deluxe octavo edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou.[2]

The book was widely acclaimed on its release, and remains so; it is regarded as one of the premier adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Michael Strogoff. Its depiction of Captain Nemo's submarine, Nautilus, is regarded as ahead of its time, as it accurately describes many features of modern submarines, which in the 1860s were comparatively primitive vessels. Verne was inspired by a model of the French submarine Plongeur, which he saw at the Exposition Universelle in 1867