I was looking through some Jules Verne titles, and I was struck at how very different the covers are. These are for the relatively obscure novel Mistress Branican
Here’s one English-language edition. THe cover is identical to the one they use for another Verne title, Clovis Dardentor
Yes. And a lot of issued versions are the original awful translations from a hundred years ago. The audio edition I have of 20,000 Leagues is the abhorred Lewis Mercier translation that cuts out big portions of the book and mistranslates the rest. We’re in the midst of a third Verne renaissance, and brand new accurate translations are now available. In some cases (The Brother Kip, the Mighty Orinoco, The Invasion of the Sea) books that had never been translated have in the past 15 years been translated into English. In other cases, books that have been extensively rewritten by his son (The Lighthouse at the End of the World, The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz, The Golden Volcano, Magellania etc) have finally become available. In other cases, previously lost works have been reprinted. It’s actually worthwhile in many cases to get the new versions, even if it costs more, because the older versions can be pretty awful.
And, of course, they can put whatever cover they want on it. That Italian edition of Mistress Branican makes it look like the porn version.
I do like the jolly neo-imperialist collected symbols of all the world type thing as in your 3rd link, a little sister of SteamPunk; however the Scandinavian/Northern France painting of the 5th link wins my heart ---- although more suited to Gissing or George Moore than Verne.
The 1970s ( small independent publisher ) look of the 2nd has it’s charm but is somewhat rudimentary.
Thanks for getting all this.
I generally found Verne admirable but relentless and tedious in those earlier translations. Just like his inspiration from the puritanic animal slaughterers, The Swiss Robinson, that delightful as CrusoeRobinsonade.
Verne was obsessed with the Robinsonade. He himself wrote either one long or two short sequels to The Swiss Family Robinson (depending upon how you count his books)
He also started the Shipwrecked Family, his own independent take on the idea, but abandoned it (A translation was first published only a couple of years ago). He later incorporated material from it in another Robinsonade, the more successful Mysterious Island.
And then there’s Godfrey Morgan (AKA a School for Crusoes) and Two Years’ Vacation (Verne’s proto-Lord of the Flies) and the Robinson’like touches in 20,000 Leagues and Hector Servadac (AKA Off on a Comet) and his other books.
As for the style, you get very different flavors from different translators. And it helps when they’re not eviscerating his work, like Mercier Lewis/Louis Mercier was. Read the more recent translations, again, for more fluid style. There are new editions of The Begum’s fortune and Carpathian Castle that are far better than the I. O. Evans Arco/Fitzroy editions that used to be the only available English translations.
OK. It is implied there that Crusoe inspired colonialism, which I think a bit weak — one man grabbing a portion of this earth ( he’s gonna be somewhere anyway ) is not the same as arriving with Alexander’s army.
I think the primary appeal is to humankind’s love of lists. I don’t know if inventory-theme is a thing, but it’s always cute to read stocks and supplies available to the heroes, and in the case of the Swiss, plundering the doomed vessel slowly. *
Of course, to the unbearable Defoe and his early readers a certain moral purpose was primary. Makes it rather unbearable itself.