# Is "Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas)" by Jules Verne a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas) by Jules Verne (Pierre-Jules Hetzel, Paris, 1869–1870 (text first edition, two parts) / 1871 (first illustrated Hetzel grand in-8)) is identified by: Two distinct "firsts" must be separated. Precedence: The ORIGINAL-LANGUAGE FIRST is the French Hetzel edition — text first in the in-18 two-part edition, Part 1 (28 October 1869) and Part 2 (13 June 1870), Paris: J.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Two distinct "firsts" must be separated
- TEXT FIRST EDITION — the in-18 (small format), unillustrated typographic edition from Hetzel's Bibliothèque d'Éducation et de Récréation, issued in TWO PARTS with DIFFERENT YEARS: Première Partie published 28 October 1869 (title-page dated 1869), Deuxième Partie published 13 June 1870 (title-page dated 1870)
- CORRECTION to the submitted record: Part 1 is 1869, NOT 1870 — the text first edition spans 1869–1870, so a genuine text-first set pairs an 1869 first volume with an 1870 second volume
- This carries the earliest text
- Pre-original serialization ran in the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation from vol
- 121 (20 March 1869) to vol
- Publisher imprint reads Pierre-Jules Hetzel, Paris

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jules Verne |
| Publisher | Pierre-Jules Hetzel, Paris |
| Year | 1869–1870 (text first edition, two parts) / 1871 (first illustrated Hetzel grand in-8) |
| True first | — |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Two distinct "firsts" must be separated |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Two distinct "firsts" must be separated. (1) TEXT FIRST EDITION — the in-18 (small format), unillustrated typographic edition from Hetzel's Bibliothèque d'Éducation et de Récréation, issued in TWO PARTS with DIFFERENT YEARS: Première Partie published 28 October 1869 (title-page dated 1869), Deuxième Partie published 13 June 1870 (title-page dated 1870). CORRECTION to the submitted record: Part 1 is 1869, NOT 1870 — the text first edition spans 1869–1870, so a genuine text-first set pairs an 1869 first volume with an 1870 second volume. This carries the earliest text. Pre-original serialization ran in the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation from vol. 11 no. 121 (20 March 1869) to vol. 13 no. 151 (20 June 1870). (2) THE ICONIC COLLECTOR'S EDITION — the grand in-octavo (grand in-8) ILLUSTRATED edition, published 16 November 1871 (release delayed by the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune), with 111 wood-engraved illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou, engraved by Henri-Théophile Hildibrand. Cartonnage points for the illustrated first: (a) issued both in plain publisher's boards and in Hetzel's decorated publisher's percaline (cloth) cartonnage — the cartonnage is the desirable state. (b) The 1871 illustrated first PREDATES the "aux deux éléphants" plate (that Souze-designed elephant cover first appears 1875 on L'Île mystérieuse / 1876 on Michel Strogoff and becomes the standard cover through ~1891), so a TRUE 1871 first-issue cartonnage is in one of Hetzel's PRE-ELEPHANT decorated percaline plates; an elephant cover on this title indicates a later re-issue, not the 1871 first. (c) A dated 1871 title page bound with the pre-elephant plate is the target. (d) Correct Hetzel collation: title in red and black, half-title, all 111 in-text and full-page wood engravings present and clean. Two further points often cited by dealers — all-edges-gilt (toutes tranches dorées) on first-issue vs top-edge-only later, and blue-grey coated endpapers — are commonly repeated in trade descriptions but are NOT firmly established first-issue points in an authoritative Hetzel bibliography; treat them as supporting, not decisive. (e) Percaline was offered in roughly a dozen cloth colors (red is the classic), so color alone does not date a copy — the binding PLATE (design) does.

## Is this the true first?
Precedence: The ORIGINAL-LANGUAGE FIRST is the French Hetzel edition — text first in the in-18 two-part edition, Part 1 (28 October 1869) and Part 2 (13 June 1870), Paris: J. Hetzel — with the celebrated first ILLUSTRATED edition (grand in-8, 111 De Neuville/Riou plates engraved by Hildibrand) following 16 November 1871; pre-original serialization began 20 March 1869 in the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation. FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION: "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas," translated by the Rev. Lewis Page Mercier (under the pseudonym "Mercier Lewis"), London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle — printed late 1872, with the title page dated 1873 (as called for). It is a notoriously abridged and error-riddled translation (roughly a quarter of Verne's text cut) but is the true first English-language book edition; original publisher's green cloth, stamped in black and gilt, is the desirable state and is scarce.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition bears on identifying the 19th-century first. Modern-market pitfall instead: the vast majority of "Hetzel" copies offered are later re-issues of the Voyages Extraordinaires in the "aux deux éléphants" cartonnage (from 1875, standard to ~1891) or still-later Hetzel/Hachette printings — these are NOT the 1871 first. In English, essentially all common copies are 20th-century reprints of the flawed Mercier text (Everyman, Scribner, book-club / Junior Deluxe reprints, etc.); the only first is the Sampson Low edition (printed 1872, title-page 1873). Reprint/re-issue status is diagnosed by the binding plate and imprint, not by the color of the cloth.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas)* by Jules Verne a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/vingt-mille-lieues-sous-les-mers
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.