From the Earth to the Moon (De la Terre à la Lune)

French original; Hetzel (Paris) 1865, in-18, is the true first — the census is right on publisher and year but wrong on what to look for, on two counts. (a) FIRST-THUS / CARTONNAGE TRAP: the census says "Hetzel cartonnage variants drive value". The celebrated Hetzel decorated cartonnages are 1868 and later; they are illustrated editions that postdate the true first and carry no precedence. The priority edition is the plain, unillustrated 1865 in-18 — the opposite of what a cartonnage-hunting eye would select. (b) The first English-language edition is NOT the Sampson Low 1873. It is "From the Earth to the Moon: Passage Direct in 97 Hours and 20 Minutes", translated by J. K. Hoyt, Newark, N.J.: The Newark Printing and Publishing Company, 1869 — large octavo, pp. [1-3] 4-84, printed in double columns with an inserted frontispiece, in publisher's green wrappers printed in black, no statement of printing. It first ran in seventeen installments in the Newark Daily and Weekly Journal from 10 June 1869 and was issued in wrappers later that year. Both L. W. Currey and John W. Knott catalogue it as the first edition in English and a legendary rarity, the Library of Congress holding one of only a few known copies. The Sampson Low (London) 1873 "From the Earth to the Moon Direct in 97 Hours 20 Minutes: and a Trip Round It" (trans. Louis Mercier and Eleanor E. King; frontispiece and seventy-seven plates) is the first British book edition and the first English edition to combine this novel with Autour de la Lune, but it is not the first in English, and the Mercier/King translation deletes roughly 20% of Verne's French text.