Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$209.88 + shipping
Description: Half title with ad. on verso, front. ('Comely girls did the waiting'), plates. Orig. dark green cloth, spine & front board lettered in gilt & pictorially blocked in black; v. sl. wear to extremities, otherwise v.g. Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine, 1879. First English edition, 1880. JVE V020; Myers 55.
Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$349.81 + shipping
Description: [Russian Adventure] VINTAGE COPY, a later edition. Octavo (21 x 15cm), pp.xii; 377 [1]. With a folding map and 89 engraved plates by Ferat and Barbant, including a frontispiece. Publisher's green cloth with gilt titles and black decoration to spine and upper. Yellow-coated endpapers. Rough bookplate to front pastedown, with related pencil ownership to fly-leaf. Upper hinge split, but quite firm. Browning and a little spotting to preliminaries. Map partly split along one fold. An adventure novel set in Russia, in which the imperial courier must race across Siberia to deliver a message from Moscow to Irkutsk. Published together with an early Verne short story for the first time in 1876.
Seller: Adrian Harrington Ltd, PBFA, ABA, ILAB, Royal Tunbridge Wells, KENT, United Kingdom
Verne, Jules. The Child of the Cavern. Sampson Low, London, 1883.
Price: US$495.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Lovely early edition of this scarce Verne classic. Third edition dated 1883, and identical in format to the first edition of 1877. Taves and Michaluk mention a second edition of 1878 but not this one, referring only to subsequent cheap editions. This is the full price original edition in publisher's green cloth lettered and illustrated in gilt and black and with the full complement of 44 full-page illustrations. Binding tight and clean. Occasional grubby marks to margins but overall a very good copy.
Seller: Dr Jeremy Parrott, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$502.45 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Translated by W. H. G. Kingston with forty four illustrations. The Child of the Cavern with identical binding as the first edition. Original green cloth embossed and decorated in gilt and black. Light wear to the edges and spine ends which have been strengthened. Light lean to the book. Rather crude replaced end papers resulting in separation of the front and rear hinges. Light foxing of the browned pages. Stain on pages 18/19.
Seller: Rare And Antique Books PBFA, Exeter, DEVON, United Kingdom
Price: US$572.41 + shipping
Description: [Strange Tale] THIRD UK EDITION. Octavo (19 x 15cm), pp.xii; 246. With 44 engraved illustrations, including a frontispiece, by Jules Férat and Charles Barbant. Publiisher's green cloth with gilt titles and black decoration to spine and upper. Yellow-coated endpapers. Bookseller's label and another small note-label to front pastedown. 'Contents' leaves a little proud and browned. Some light spotting to first and final leaves. Light wear to cloth; only noticeably to head and tail of spine. A fresh, attractive copy. Near fine. The discovery of an apparent race of troglodytes holds up the development of a promising new vein at an old coal mine near Stirling, in Scotland. First published in English in 1877.
Seller: Adrian Harrington Ltd, PBFA, ABA, ILAB, Royal Tunbridge Wells, KENT, United Kingdom
Price: US$954.02 + shipping
Description: [Science Fiction Adventure] SECOND UK EDITIONS. Complete in two volumes. Octavo (19 x 16cm), pp.viii; 262 [2]; pp.viii; 246 [2]. With a total of 98 engraved plates by Benett, including a frontispiece to each volume. Publisher's green cloth with gilt titles and black decoration to spines and uppers. Both volumes re-cased some time ago, with spotting and wear to replacement white endpapers. Lower hinge of volume I just starting. Light even toning throughout, with a distinct tobacco scent. Both volumes slightly cocked. Moderate wear to cloth, and corners bumped. Very good. A feast of steam-powered elephants and revenge, set in India ten years after the great Sepoy rebellion of 1857. This translation first published in London between 1880 and 1881.
Seller: Adrian Harrington Ltd, PBFA, ABA, ILAB, Royal Tunbridge Wells, KENT, United Kingdom
Price: US$3750.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, pp. [i-v] vi [vii] viii [1-3] 4-312 + 32-page publisher's catalogue dated "September, 1883" inserted at rear, 44 full page illustrations and title page vignette by L. Benett, publisher's pictorial gray cloth, front panel stamped in black, brown, green and gold, spine panel stamped in black, brown and gold, rear panel stamped in blind, floral patterned endpapers printed in gray. First edition in English. A romance of science, but not science fiction. When published in English this "little love story with a background of Scottish scenery" (DERBY MERCURY) received a number of good reviews in British papers. "The influence of two English authors is evident in this novel. The Scottish setting was derived from the works of Sir Walter Scott. Several characters are reminiscent of personages in Charles Dickens's NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. The 'green ray' is a genuine nautical phenomenon which has been described by scientists. It is seen by sailors as the sun sets." - Gallagher, Mistichelli and Van Eerde, p. 103. A translation of LE RAYON VERT (1882), this is the only edition using Mary de Hauteville's translation which THE DAILY NEWS called "excellent." Bleiler (1978), p. 199. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992). Myers 31. Taves and Michaluk V023. Gallagher, Mistichelli and Van Eerde A53. Gift inscription dated 2 February 1884 on the recto of the first leaf. Cloth lightly rubbed at edges, a very good copy. An excellent copy of one of the scarcest British editions of Verne's works. It was published in September 1883, preceding George Munro's pirated Seaside Library edition by a month; there was no contemporary hardbound American edition. (#160994)
Seller: Currey, L.W. Inc. ABAA/ILAB, Elizabethtown, NY, U.S.A.
VERNE, Jules. The Green Ray. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1883, 1883.
Price: US$5500.00 + shipping
Description: The Scarcest of All Verne First Editions VERNE, Jules. The Green Ray. Translated From the French by Mary de Hautville. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1883. First British edition and First edition in English, the five shillings issue with plain edges, with 32 page publisher's catalogue, September 1883, at rear. Octavo (7 x 4 3/4 in; 178 x 121 mm). viii, 312, 32 (publisher's catalog) pp. Frontispiece, title vignette and forty-three black and white plates (included in pagination) by L. Benett, reprinted from the first French edition. One map. Publishers ochre cloth, front cover pictorially decorated in red and black, title lettered in gilt, rear cover decoratively bordered in blind, spine pictorially decorated in red and black and lettered in gilt, blue-gray floral endpapers. The mildest of rubbing to the extremities, internally immaculate, a near fine and untouched copy. The scarcest of all Verne first editions. Only two copies have come to auction within the last thirty-six years, one rebound, the other "becoming loose." Published in September 1883, a month before George Munro's pirated "Seaside Library" edition. The Green Ray was something of a departure for Verne, a love story set in Scotland, wherein a girl refuses to marry the man her uncles have chosen for her unless she sees the mysterious "green ray," which would tell her it is true love. After numerous failed attempts the phenomenon eventually becomes visible, but the couple, gazing into each other's eyes, miss it. Green flashes or rays are actual optical phenomena that occur shortly after sunset or before sunrise, when a green spot is visible for a short period of time above the sun or a green ray shoots up from the sunset point. It is usually observed from a low altitude where there is an unobstructed view of the horizon, such as on the ocean. Taves & Michaluk V023. Myers 31.
Seller: David Brass Rare Books, Inc., Calabasas, CA, U.S.A.
Jules Verne. The Green Ray. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, London, 1883.
Price: US$9000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First British edition in original ochre colored cloth pictorially decorated in black, brown, green, and gilt spine and cover, decoratively bordered in blind on rear, blue-gray florally decorated endpapers. Frontispiece, title page vignette and 43 additional interior illustrations. Translated from the French by Mary De Hauteveille. Extremely rare with earliest state of ads - 32 page catalog dated November1882 at rear. Taves & Michaluk V023; Myers 31. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington (1883), 312 pages. Nearly Fine: The mildest of wear to the extremities, internally fantastic, previous owner's info on front pastedown dated April 1894. Some foxing to page ends. A handsome copy with earliest state of ads.
Seller: SF & F Books, Chester, VA, U.S.A.