[VERNE, JULES]. Michael Strogoff, the Courier of the Czar. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1877.
FIRST ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION IN BOOK FORM. Cloth-bound, hardcover, octavo (20.5 x 13.5 x 3.5 cm.), pp. ix, 377, 24 publisher's catalogue. English text translated by W. H. G. Kingston. Original brown cloth over bevelled boards, spine and front cover pictorially blocked in gilt and black, blind panelling and publisher's device on rear cover, coated endpapers, all page edges gilt. Wood-engraved frontispiece with tissue guard, 88 wood-engraved plates, 2 inserted folding maps, by Barbant after Jules Ferat and Léon Benett. Publisher's 24-page catalogue to rear, dated October 1876. Printed by William Clowes and Sons. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding tight, secure and square. Slight rubbing to spine ends and points. Contents complete with some very light scattered fox spots. Previous owner details neatly to front pastedown and endpaper. A very well-preserved copy. Scarce thus.
Notes: Rare first English-language edition in book form. It prints the title story alongside the first revised version of Jules Verne's first published story, "The Mutineers", a Mexican romance that appeared in the French magazine Musée des familles in 1851. Though its title-page is dated 1877, this book was published in 1876, following serialization in London Society from March 1876. The French edition was also published that same year.
