VERNE, Jules (1828-1905). Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. Translated from the French. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873 [but 1872].

8vo. Half-title; frontispiece; numerous illustrations. Publisher's variant salmon pictorial cloth (rebacked preserving original spine and most of the original endpapers, discreet repairs to corners).

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with the jellyfish vignette and lacking the final "s" in "Seas" on the cover, and with "The End" printed on p.303.

One of about 15 copies extant, "THE RAREST MILESTONE IN THE SCIENCE FICTION GENRE" (Arthur B. Edwards, "Collecting Jules Verne," Firsts, Vol. 6, no. 7/8, 1996). The first edition, published by James Osgood, appeared in late 1872, a few weeks after the British edition, and likely bound from the same sheets. The edition was quickly exhausted, and the book was then issued by Smith and Co. with a new cover design depicting Captain Nemo using a sextant. COPIES BOUND IN SALMON CLOTH ARE VERY RARE: "Most of the surviving copies [of the Osgood edition, as here] were ... bound in green cloth, but single copies of blue, maroon and an odd salmon color exist" (Edwards). We trace only two other copies bound in salmon cloth at auction in the last 40 years. Taves & Michaluk V006; Myers, 56.