Veinte Mil Leguas de Viaje Submarino. Unica traducción española por Don Vicente Guimera. [Veinte Mille Lieues sous les Mers / Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.]

Illustrations by Édouard Riou Obras and Alphonse de Neuville, engraved by Hildebrand.

Contemporary quarter leather with raised bands

Verne's 'Veinte Mille Lieues sous les Mers' was published in parts by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in his Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation between March 1869, and June 1870; the first part was published in book form in French in October 1869, the second part in June of the following year. However the entire book was published in two simultaneous parts by Tomás Rey y Compañía in the Spanish translation of Vicente Guimera in 1869. This appears to have been due to the difficulties caused by the French publisher by the Franco Prussian War, though it is not clear whether Hetzel allowed the Spanish to precede his, or whether this in a pirate edition. The French edition is unillustrated, while Tomás Rey was able to use the illustrations that had been prepared for the original monthly parts. Although this edition does seem to appear fairly regularly , if highly (even over-) priced, we have found very few copies in institutional libraries. We could find nothing on WorldCat, no copies in the Catalogue Collectif de France, and only two on the Spanish CCPB. Palau 360719

The binding is simple, but attractive, the spine slightly rubbed, but entirely sound. The boards are rather more rubbed and the corners are bruised, with one missing. The edition is on low quality paper, and appears to have been well read. We have corrected the dog earing in the lower corner of the first eight leaves, but this has weakened some of the corners. There are (quite accomplished) pencil sketches on three pages of text, and the back end paper. One of the two maps has two ink lines drawn across the Atlantic; two tears across pp. 227/228 and 229/230 have been rather crudely repaired, but the pages are complete. Both free endpapers are missing. We have seen photographs of a copy that, as well as the engraved title page, and the typographic title page, (both present in our copy), conserved what appears to be the original printed wrapper; this is not present in this copy. No separate title page appears to have been issued for the second part. Otherwise, there are occasional minor marks and stains, light foxing towards the end of the book. We have attached a large numer of photos to give the clearest possible idea of the actual condition of the copy. Given that the book suffers from the dreaded trinity of bad paper, a popular novel, and attractive to children, this is probably about as good a copy as one is likely to find. Further images are available on our website, or on request.