[ Books ] VERNE, JULES. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. Illustrated. 8vo, publisher's bright blue cloth with gilt-pictorial design of jellyfish on front cover vignette, very slightly cocked; authors' names in pencil and ink on front free

[ Books ] VERNE, JULES. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. Illustrated. 8vo, publisher's bright blue cloth with gilt-pictorial design of jellyfish on front cover vignette, very slightly cocked; authors' names in pencil and ink on front free endpaper, in ink on front blank, final illustration (between pages 302 and 303) trimmed along outer right margin. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873 E5,000/7,000 RARE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST ISSUE and one of only15-20 extant copies known. Printed in November 1872 (same month as British edition) most likely from the sheets of the first British edition published by Sampson Low, copies quickly became unavailable. Scholars believe this may be because Osgood had very few sheets from the Sampson edition, the other may be that Osgood suffered major losses of stock during the Boston fire on November 9, 1872. The Osgood differs physically from the more common George M. Smith American edition of the same year in several ways as well: this binding features a cover vignette of jel -lyfish as opposed to Captain Nemo with his sextant; on the Smith, the title on the front cover and spinelacks an "S" after "Sea" while the Smith states "Seas." Further, the paper, the printed title on the title-page, the collation of the contents, and list of the illustrations pages are identical to that ofthe British edition. "[This work] may, in fact, be the rarest milestone title in the science fiction genre"- Arthur B. Edwards, "Collecting Jules Verne" (published in Firsts, Volume 6, Number 7/8, July/August, 1996). [SEE ILLUSTRATION FRONT COVER