Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$332.22 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Near Fine octavo hardcover. Rear board richly blindstamped. Gilt titling to spine and front board which are blind-stamped with black colouring. Endpapers in VG+ condition. Minor spots to edges of textblock. In exceptionally good condition. Photos available on request. This is the Second Series (ie: Vol. 2 of two Vols.). Undated. 185pp. + 6PP. ads at rear.
Seller: Yarra Cottage Books, Warrandyte, VIC, Australia
Price: US$3180.06 + shipping
Description: Early yellowback edition, in a remarkably well-preserved example of the original binding. Verne's classic was originally serialized in France from March 1869 to June 1870 and the first English translation appeared in 1872. The eye-catchingly illustrated yellowback format flourished in Britain during the second half of the 19th century, coinciding with advancements in education and railway travel. The fragility and portability of yellowbacks, which were often sold near transport links and read on long, sooty journeys, made them unlikely to survive. Also known as as "the railway novel", the Victorian yellowback "would become the precursor to the modern day-paperback novel" (Joseph, p. 135). This yellowback edition was published by Ward, Lock, & Tyler as part of their "Jules Verne Library" series, introduced between the end of 1875 and 1876. The volumes of the series were also offered in a more expensive cloth binding. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea appeared first in two separate volumes (part 1 and part 2) in 1876 and then in the present edition, as a combined volume. These yellowbacks were often reprinted. The present copy is undated and bears the publisher's address as Paternoster Row; this indicates that it was issued before 1878, when the publishers moved their premises to Salisbury Square. Not in Gallagher. Octavo. Original yellow boards lettered in black and red, front cover illustrated with four men in deep sea diving suits attacking a giant crab, endpapers printed with adverts. Colour frontispiece and 5 similar plates. With 8 pp. advertisements at end, further advertisement slip printed in purple tipped in at rear inner hinge. Binding rubbed, spine ends and lower corners worn, front panel bright, short superficial splits to joints, but firm, faint foxing to edges, contents clean. A very good example of this famously fragile format.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom