The Jules Verne Extraordinary Adventures Series.

[Billsuits1]

I finished The Star of the South. The ending was kind of weak but I loved the inside of the novel and all the adventures that ensued. I even told a co-worker about how they tamed wild giraffes and rode them for miles. I also thought how the ostriches were sometimes domesticated.

I decided to move back to the USA and read The Purchase of the North Pole next. It should be a short read of less than 130 pp.

[Billsuits1]

I liked The Purchase of the North Pole. It was really fast paced and I liked how it all turned out. I did not care for the little romance in it but overall it was a good read.

Next is The Underground City to read.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Billsuits1

I finished the two part series called Off on a Comet. I read the McKay version for the first part To the Sun but I could not find the second half by the same publisher. I did a little searching and located the entire book as written by Munro in 1877 on the following website.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/book...Servadac02.htm

It is suppose to be a a literal translation. I just downloaded it as text and put it in my reader.

The book was very good but the ending kind of left me empty. And there is some antisemitism in the novel that is kind of painful at times.

Next I am going back to South Africa for The Star of the South. Google has a free translation available for download.

I have this in the Delphi Classcis series. Here's some prefatory material:


OFF ON A COMET

Translated by Charles F. Horne,

First published under the French title Hector Servadac in 1877, this novel tells the story of John Herschel, who observes Comet Halley from his observatory in Cape Town in 1835. The narrative begins with a comet that touches the Earth in its flight and collects a few small chunks of it.



Here's the first opening scene, just to give you a flavor for the translation:

CHAPTER I. A CHALLENGE

“Nothing, sir, can induce me to surrender my claim.”

“I am sorry, count, but in such a matter your views cannot modify mine.”

“But allow me to point out that my seniority unquestionably gives me a prior right.”

“Mere seniority, I assert, in an affair of this kind, cannot possibly entitle you to any prior claim whatever.”

“Then, captain, no alternative is left but for me to compel you to yield at the sword’s point.”

“As you please, count; but neither sword nor pistol can force me to forego my pretensions. Here is my card.”

“And mine.”

This rapid altercation was thus brought to an end by the formal interchange of the names of the disputants. On one of the cards was inscribed:

Captain Hector Servadac,
Staff Officer, Mostaganem.
On the other was the title:
Count Wassili Timascheff,



I have yet to read this.

Who publishes the McKay version?




Don

[Billsuits1]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I have this in the Delphi Classcis series. Here's some prefatory material:


I have yet to read this.

Who publishes the McKay version?

Don

The McKay publications is what I was referencing. Here is the link on ARCHIVE.ORG along with illustrations.

The series is two books. The first is called To The Sun.

http://archive.org/stream/tosunjourn...ge/n5/mode/2up

I noticed it was slightly different when I came to the end and went looking for the next part. I could not find it from McKay anywhere, so I read another version. But I went back and looked at these different versions translations and saw some difference. The last chapter of the first book has different descriptions of some things.

I wish I could have found the second part by McKay.

But, I have been sick for the past week so little reading for me

If you read it let me know how you liked the ending. I liked the first book better than the second one.

[Dr. Drib]

Apparently, the version you have read (the first part, anyway), is the infamous translation of Edward Roth, and published my McKay.

Here is something excerpted from this website:

http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/VerneT...rticle%29.html




"Of a very different order of magnitude, however, are the many additions and rewrites evident in the infamous Roth translations of Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon (collectively retitled The Baltimore Gun Club) and Hector Servadac (retitled To the Sun? Off on a Comet!). In addition to creating an entire chapter ex nihilo and adding it to the story of Around the Moon—detailing Maston’s (who is renamed “Marston”) journey from Long’s Peak to San Francisco by stage and Pacific Railroad—Roth repeatedly uses Verne’s texts as a launching pad for his own idiosyncratic rants. One example should suffice to give a flavor of Roth’s “amplifications.” Not a word of the following tirade can be found in Verne’s original.

Not only was the railroad completed as far as Cedar Keys, but also the latter town was connected with Tampa by a branch constructed along the low marshy Gulf coast at great trouble and expense. Barbican had made the company a present of his route, strongly recommending it as being higher and healthier, more picturesque and fertile, besides being shorter and less expensive. But Barbican, through a great artillerist, was unfortunately only a Baltimore man, and no mere Baltimore man could by any possibility teach a Boston man, as the President of the Gulf Railroad Company prided himself upon being.

For, outside of Boston, as you must know, everything in the United States is provincial; literature, fashion, society, at best second rate; all the boys and girls in the Union learn their lessons out of Boston newspapers, Boston magazines, and Boston books; the Revolutionary War began and ended within sight of Bunker Hill; the Boston people single handed had licked the British in 1812; aided a little by some other New Englanders, they had put down the great rebellion of ’61; Faneuil Hall, “the cradle of American Liberty,” was the only place where the “Centennial” should be celebrated; her municipal system was unequaled; her fire department was simply perfect; no act of cruel bigotry had ever disgraced her lofty minded and enlightened people; her men were all corresponding members of learned societies, and her women read so much that they all wore eyeglasses; her public schools produced the profoundest of scholars and the most virtuous of citizens. Such, at least, was the Nicene Creed repeated every Sunday by every good Bostonian. The President of the Gulf Railroad happened to be an extra good Bostonian. A Baltimorian to dictate to him? Never! Of course, he had his way; the branch followed the worst possible route because a Baltimorian had pointed out the best possible one. What matter if it cost the company an additional million of dollars and five thousand poor Irish laborers their lives? A grand moral principle had been successfully vindicated. If Boston is not to have her way, the world is not worth living in!" (114)




Don

[rkomar]

He may rant, but he does it with style!

[pholy]

Sounds like a good reason to refresh my high school French, which was defeated by Victor Hugo's Les Miserables...

[Billsuits1]

I liked the Roth version. I liked how it read.

I am not reading The Underground City now and am focused on The Mysterious Island. I came across this translation online. I have read part of the three book set before but never finished. So I thought I would read it all again.

Here is the link.

http://jv.gilead.org.il/kravitz/1/index.html

[Dr. Drib]

Billsuits1, do you know what translation that is of "The Mysterious Island"?



Don

[HarryT]

We also have a version of "The Mysterious Island" in our MR library, which I created a while ago.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We also have a version of "The Mysterious Island" in our MR library, which I created a while ago.

I own the Delphi Classics series on Jules Verne, but it looks like "The Mysterious Island" was not very well proofread (if at all). It starts out like this:

“Are we rising again?” “No. On the contrary.” “Are we descending?” “Worse than that, captain! we are falling!” “For Heaven’s sake heave out the ballast!” “There! the last sack is empty!” “Does the balloon rise?” “No!” “I hear a noise like the dashing of waves. The sea is below the car! It cannot be more than 500 feet from us!” “Overboard with every weight!... everything!”


The attribution on the quotes is very confusing, and is not correct. The translator is listed as "Anonymous."

I found one copy (for sale) on Amazon, which corrects this.

I'll check out your assemblage, Harry.

Thanks.



Don

[Dr. Drib]

Harry, this appears to be the same anonymous version as on the Delphi Classics edition.


ADDED:

There is an edition from Modern Library Classics, translated by Jordon Stump, that give proper attribution (but through quotes only, as there is no speaker identified during the first instances of conversation), and is located here:

http://www.amazon.com/Mysterious-Isl...der_B005U3V380





Don

[Billsuits1]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Billsuits1, do you know what translation that is of "The Mysterious Island"?



Don

It was published on the same site as the text but a different webpage.

http://jv.gilead.org.il/kravitz/


And also there is this introductions to the translation (with some spoilers so do not look unless you want some spoilers - you have been warned!!!)

http://www.ibiblio.org/julesverne/bo...crit%20mat.pdf

[Pax]

I highly recommend "The Survivors of the Jonathan" (Magellania), it's one of my favorites books. I had a blast reading it.