Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas)

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.