This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Pioneering science-fiction writer Jules Verne is the second most translated author of all time (after Agatha Christie.) This translation of his short story A Voyage in a Balloon first appeared in Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art in a May 1852 edition, making it the first of the French writer's stories to be published in English. As Verne writes in this story: "May this terrific recital, while it instructs those who read it, not discourage the explorers of the routes of air."

Jules Verne, the most translated novelist in the world and best known for books such as Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas and Around the World in Eighty Days, was also a prolific playwright. Journey Through the Impossible, a play of fantasy and science fiction, ran for 97 performances in Paris in 1882 and 1883. In the three acts, the characters go first to the center of the Earth, then under the sea, and finally to the planet "Altor." Characters from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, From the Earth to the Moon, Doctor Ox, and Journey to the Center of the Earth appear again in Journey through the Impossible, including Captain Nemo, President Barbican, Michel Ardan, Doctor Ox, and Professor Lidenbrock. Verne wrote this play in the middle of his life, between his optimistic (science helps humanity and is good) and pessimistic (science is dangerous and bad) works; the play is a vehicle for Verne to ask himself and his readers whether science, technology, and the pursuit of knowledge are good or bad. He used the play to pose questions about life and wisdom that are still important in our time. The script of the play was lost to Verne scholars for almost a century, until the text was discovered in 1978 in the Archives of the Censorship Office of the Third French Republic and was published in French in 1981. The play had many reviews in 1882 and two of them are included here to give the reader insight into how the play was staged in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. Also included are many wonderful illustrations showing set designs for the original play, a page from a lost scene, the original frontispiece, and other interesting details. This is the first complete edition and the first English translation of a surprising work by a popular French novelist whose works continue to delight readers and audiences to this day.

This story is a sequel to "Their Island Home," which takes up the adventures of the Swiss Family Robinson at the place where the author of the original narrative dropped them. "The Swiss Family Robinson" seems to have affected Jules Verne's literary bent as no other book ever did. It gave him that liking for the lonely island life as the basis of a yarn which is conspicuous in much of his work. In a preface to the story of which this is really a part he tells how firmly New Switzerland established itself in the fabric of his thoughts, till it became for him a real island inhabited by real people. At last he was compelled to write about it, and "Their Island Home" and "The Castaways of the Flag" are the result. The youth of Europe -- many generations of it -- owes a big debt to the old romancer who worked for so many years in his turret room at Amiens to entertain it. From that room, with its many bookshelves, came volume after volume of adventure, mostly with a big ad-mixture of the scientific. Verne was not one of those who pile hairbreadth escapes one upon another till they become incredible. There are plenty of things happening in his books, but they are the sort of things that would happen, given the circumstances, and he explains why and how they chanced in the most convincing manner possible. In these days of submarines and aeroplanes it is interesting to read again the wonderful Frenchman's forecast of them in such books as "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "The Clipper of the Clouds." "Round the World in Eighty Days" ---the task would be an easy one now, but at the time when he wrote it required great ingenuity to make it seem possible; and the end of that book is one of the most ingenious things in fiction, though it has for justification a simple geographical fact. Phileas Fogg was a day late, as he believed. He had apparently lost his wager. But, having gone round the world in the right direction, he had gained a day, and just won. If he had gone the other way he would have been two days late, for a day would have been lost to him --- cut right out of the calendar. With the restoration of Fritz Zermatt and his wife Jenny, his brother Frank and the other Castaways of the Flag to their anxious and sorely tried relatives in New Switzerland, the story of "The Swiss Family Robinson" is brought to its proper end. Thereafter, the interest of their domestic life is merged in that of the growth of a young colony. Romance is merged in history and the romancer's work is finished. Jules Verne has here set the coping stone on the structure begun by Rudolph Wyss, and in "The Swiss Family Robinson," "Their Island Home" and "The Castaways of the Flag" we have, not a story and two sequels, but a complete trilogy which judges who survey it must pronounce very good. A word may be permitted about this English version. Jules Verne is a master of pure narrative. His style is singularly limpid and his language is so simple that people with a very limited knowledge of French can read his stories in the original and miss very little of their substance. But to be able to read a book in one language and to translate it into another are very different things. The very simplicity of Jules Verne's French presents difficulties to one who would translate it into English. What the French call "idiotismes" abound in all Verne's writing, and there are few French authors to whose books it is so difficult to impart a really English air in English dress. Whatever the imperfections of these translations may be they cannot, however, mar very greatly the pleasure the stories themselves give to every reader.

Originally published in French in 1867, Michael Strogoff, or, the Courier of the Czar, is regarded as one of Jules Verne's greatest novels. This intriguing tale set in Russia tells the story of one man, Michael Strogoff, the Czar's courier, who is set out on an impossible mission to save his country. A traitor inspires the dangerous Feofar Khan to invade Siberia and form a rebellion, leading to a plot to kill the czar's brother, the Grand Duke. As a result, Strogoff is sent out to warn the Duke, serving as the nation's last hope to cease the rebellion. Along the way he meets new people, makes new friends and gets capture by the enemy, only to make a grand escape. Readers are sure to be at the edge of their seats as they follow the courier's adventures through Siberia. Though this book is not one of the many science-fiction books that Verne is so highly regarded for, it utilizes the scientific phenomenon as a major plot device, allowing readers to nevertheless enjoy his profound literary voice and follow the protagonist on an unforgettable adventure. Jules Verne was a French novelist known for his adventure novels and his influence over the science fiction genre. He was considered the most literary author of his time in France and throughout most of Europe, and is regarded as the second most translated author since 1979. His more famous works include, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. He lived in France until his death in 1905.

Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (roughly £1.6 million today) set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne\'s most acclaimed works. The story starts in London on Tuesday, October 1, 1872. Fogg is a rich English gentleman living in solitude. Despite his wealth, Fogg lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about his social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club. Having dismissed his former valet, James Foster, for bringing him shaving water at 84 °F (29 °C) instead of 86 °F (30 °C), Fogg hires a Frenchman by the name of Jean Passepartout as a replacement. At the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. He accepts a wager for £20,000 (equal to about £1.6 million today) from his fellow club members, which he will receive if he makes it around the world in 80 days. Accompanied by Passepartout, he leaves London by train at 8:45 P.M. on Wednesday, October 2, 1872, and is due back at the Reform Club at the same time 80 days later, Saturday, December 21, 1872.

Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne’s prophetic novel of man’s race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen. When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. But when Barbicane’s adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a “manned” flight, one man’s dream turns into an international space race. A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination, From the Earth to the Moon is as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Verne’s timeless masterpieces 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days. * From the Paperback edition.

A Scottish lord and lady set off on a quest to find and rescue the shipwrecked Captain Grant.

The North Pole is auctioned off, and the winning team undertakes a scientific experiment to ameliorate the local climate.

The wife of a lost fisherman finds his last message to her: a lottery ticket in a bottle.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

In the somnolent Flemish town of Quiquendone disagreements are unheard of, courtships might last a decade and not a ripple of activity can be seen at all. But when the mysterious Dr Ox is tasked with providing lighting for the town, strange things begin to happen: animals become aggressive, fruits grow huge in size, plants climb more vigorously and tempers flare up, leading the once phlegmatic townsfolk to bitter confrontations and pushing them to the brink of all-out violence.Verne, the acclaimed author of immortal tales of adventure and early science fiction, can be seen here in a different light, regaling readers of all ages with a light-hearted satire that, in its warnings about the dangers of scientific experimentation, has a clear and troubling resonance with our times.