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Five Weeks in a Balloon
5 Weeks in a Balloon
Cinq Semaines en ballon (1863)
Member Andrew Nash’s website contains all the English title variations.Plot Synopsis:
(courtesy of member Dennis Kytasaari’s - website)
Dr. Samuel Fergusson and his two associates (Dick Kennedy and Joe) venture to Zanzibar in Africa. It is Fergusson’s intention to explore the part of Africa that the Barth and Burton and Speke expeditions were not able to reach. The method by which he will try to accomplish this task is unique, by using a balloon called the Victoria.
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Review(s):
Five Weeks in a Balloon: A Journey of Discovery by Three Englishmen
in Africa (Early Classics of Science Fiction).
Translator, Introduction & Notes: Frederick Paul Walter.
Illustrator: Édouard Riou and Henri de Montaut. Editor: Arthur Evans. Middletown,
CT, Wesleyan University Press, 2015. 336 pages, ?? ill.
Hardcover — ISBN-10: 081957547X, ISBN-13: 978-0819575470
Come summer, one tires of the high-minded works of spring, the long-haul novels by the latest Wunderkinder, the 900-page biographies, the “game-changing” — how I hate that phrase — works of political or sociological analyses. This is the season for the fizzy and breezy, a time to catch up on that oddball classic you’ve always meant to try, perhaps even a chance to discover a new writer, even a new genre.
Here, in no particular order, are some titles that I’ve put aside for my own pleasure-reading, or rereading, this summer. Many are from small or specialty presses, so you may need to buy them directly from the publisher or ask your favorite bookstore to order them for you. In most instances, these presses issue a variety of books as interesting as those mentioned below.
In recent years, Wesleyan University Press has spearheaded the movement to retranslate the full texts of many of Jules Verne’s scientific romances, what he called his “Voyages Extraordinaires.” This new edition of his first great adventure story contains everything a reader could desire: an excellent English translation with an enticing introduction, reproductions of the original illustrations, scholarly notes, an extensive Verne bibliography — all brought together in an exceptionally well-designed volume.