The Mysterious Island Trilogy: Dropped From The Clouds, Abandoned, The Secret of the Island
Author: Verne, Jules Gabriel (1828-1905)
Year: 1875-1876
Publisher: Scribner, Armstrong and Company
Place: New York
Description:
3 volumes. Dropped From The Clouds: viii-[9]-310+[2 ad] pages with frontispiece and numerous black and white illustrations. Abandoned: viii+304+[8 ad] pages with frontispiece and numerous black and white illustrations. The Secret of the Island: viii+299+[1 ad] pages with frontispiece and numerous black and white illustrations. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original polisher's cloth with beveled terra cotta cloth boards with an bright unfaded gilt scene to the front and gilt motifs to spine. Dropped From The Clouds is in green cloth; Abandoned bound in blue cloth; The Secret of the Island bound in original brown cloth. Translated by W. H. G. Kingston. (Gallagher, Mistichelli Eerde A33) First American editions.
The Mysterious Island (French: L'Île mystérieuse) is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1875. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and In Search of the Castaways (1867–68), though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, initially rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned with Uncle Robinson, seen as indicating the influence of the novels Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. Verne developed a similar theme in his later novel, Godfrey Morgan (French: L'École des Robinsons, 1882) The chronology of The Mysterious Island is completely incompatible with that of the original Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, whose plot begins in 1866, while The Mysterious Island begins during the American Civil War, yet is supposed to happen some years after "Twenty Thousand Leagues".
In the United States the first English printing began in Scribner's Monthly, April 1874, as a serial. In September 1875 Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle published the first British edition of Mysterious Island in three volumes entitled Dropped from the Clouds, The Abandoned, and The Secret of the Island (195,000 words). In November 1875 Scribner's published the American edition of these volumes from the English plates of Sampson Low. The purported translator, W. H. G. Kingston, was a famous author of boys' adventure and sailing stories who had fallen on hard times in the 1870s due to business failures, and so he hired out to Sampson Low as the translator for these volumes. However, it is now known that the translator of Mysterious Island and his other Verne novels was actually his wife, Agnes Kinloch Kingston, who had studied on the continent in her youth. The Kingston translation changes the names of the hero from "Smith" to "Harding"; "Smith" is a very common name in the UK and would have been associated, at that time, with the lower classes. In addition many technical passages were abridged or omitted and the anti-imperialist sentiments of the dying Captain Nemo were purged so as not to offend English readers. This became the standard translation for more than a century. In 1876 the Stephen W. White translation (175,000 words) appeared first in the columns of The Evening Telegraph of Philadelphia and subsequently as an Evening Telegraph Reprint Book. This translation is more faithful to the original story and restores the death scene of Captain Nemo, but there is still condensation and omission of some sections such as Verne's description of how a sawmill works. In the 20th century two more abridged translations appeared: the Fitzroy Edition (Associated Booksellers, 1959) abridged by I. O. Evans (90,000 words) and Mysterious Island (Bantam, 1970) abridged by Lowell Bair (90,000 words).
Condition: Recased with original end pages with some archival repairs to spine ends, some occasional foxing, soiling and fingering else a very good sharp set. is in green cloth; Abandoned bound in blue cloth; The Secret of the Island bound in original brown cloth. (Gallagher, Mistichelli Eerde A33) First American editions.
The Mysterious Island (French: L'Île mystérieuse) is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1875. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and In Search of the Castaways (1867–68), though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, initially rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned with Uncle Robinson, seen as indicating the influence of the novels Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. Verne developed a similar theme in his later novel, Godfrey Morgan (French: L'École des Robinsons, 1882) The chronology of The Mysterious Island is completely incompatible with that of the original Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, whose plot begins in 1866, while The Mysterious Island begins during the American Civil War, yet is supposed to happen some years after "Twenty Thousand Leagues".
In the United States the first English printing began in Scribner's Monthly, April 1874, as a serial. In September 1875 Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle published the first British edition of Mysterious Island in three volumes entitled Dropped from the Clouds, The Abandoned, and The Secret of the Island (195,000 words). In November 1875 Scribner's published the American edition of these volumes from the English plates of Sampson Low. The purported translator, W. H. G. Kingston, was a famous author of boys' adventure and sailing stories who had fallen on hard times in the 1870s due to business failures, and so he hired out to Sampson Low as the translator for these volumes. However, it is now known that the translator of Mysterious Island and his other Verne novels was actually his wife, Agnes Kinloch Kingston, who had studied on the continent in her youth. The Kingston translation changes the names of the hero from "Smith" to "Harding"; "Smith" is a very common name in the UK and would have been associated, at that time, with the lower classes. In addition many technical passages were abridged or omitted and the anti-imperialist sentiments of the dying Captain Nemo were purged so as not to offend English readers. This became the standard translation for more than a century. In 1876 the Stephen W. White translation (175,000 words) appeared first in the columns of The Evening Telegraph of Philadelphia and subsequently as an Evening Telegraph Reprint Book. This translation is more faithful to the original story and restores the death scene of Captain Nemo, but there is still condensation and omission of some sections such as Verne's description of how a sawmill works. In the 20th century two more abridged translations appeared: the Fitzroy Edition (Associated Booksellers, 1959) abridged by I. O. Evans (90,000 words) and Mysterious Island (Bantam, 1970) abridged by Lowell Bair (90,000 words).
Condition:
Previous owner's gift inscription dated 1875 to front end papers. Recased with original end pages with some archival repairs to spine ends, some occasional foxing, soiling and fingering else a very good sharp set.
