The Library of Stephen J. Farber

8vo (203 x 127 mm). Numerous wood-engraved plates. (Offsetting to title page, occasional very light spotting.) Original pictorial green cloth stamped in black and gilt (front hinge starting, spine ends strengthened, light rubbing to gilt).

FIRST SMITH EDITION, FIRST ISSUE with "The End" in broken type on p.303, marking it as one of the last copies produced before the type was discarded altogether. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas was first translated into English from the original French by the Reverend Louis Page Mercier, who in the process cut nearly a quarter of the original text and committed numerous translation errors; debate continues as to how much of this was intentional, as Mercier was known to object to some of the political figures represented in Verne's original work. The first American edition was published in November 1872 by the Boston publishing firm of James R. Osgood & Co., with only a handful of copies produced before the Great Boston Fire of 1872 decimated the city's publishing industry, making the 1873 Smith edition the earliest obtainable American edition of Verne's classic work. Myers 56.