Yes, I know it is supposed to be Women in Translation Month, but this is exciting.

Wesleyan University Press have sent me a review copy of a brand new translation of Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon. This is Verne’s debut novel, and the work that established his reputation as an author. Only Around the World in Eighty Days sold better. The press release describes it as one of the greatest debuts in literary history. While the likes of Margaret Cavendish and Mary Shelley had written novels about science before Verne, this is the novel that established the genre in the popular imagination.

The early translations of Verne’s work into English were hurriedly and badly done as British publishers sought to cash in on this wildly successful French literary trend. Francophone science fiction scholars are doing their best to put things right. This publication sees the first complete and accurate translation of a ground-breaking work of science fiction.

The book includes a lengthy introduction by the translator, Frederick Paul Walter, and extensive endnotes. The book is extensively illustrated with what I assume are pictures from the original publication of the novel.

This is pretty much an essential volume for anyone with an interest in the history of science fiction.