For the Flag

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THE FITZROY EDITION OF JULES VERNE
The intention of this new edition of one of the greatest of imaginative writers is to make it as comprehensive as possible, and to include his lesser-known, as well as his most popular, works. Jules Verne is universally acclaimed as the founder of modern science fiction and as the author of a number of exciting stories of travel and adventure, but he also produced several historical novels and some acute studies of contemporary life.
The first three books in the series are selected to illustrate several aspects of his work. A Floating City is based on his own experiences when he crossed the Atlantic in the ill-fated Great Eastern, a vessel that was intended to be the greatest achievement of nineteenth-century engineering but which proved to be its greatest failure. The Begum's Fortune, a remarkable work of science fiction, displays its author's gift of foresight, for it contains not only what is probably the first idea of an artificial... Tovább

Fülszöveg

THE FITZROY EDITION OF JULES VERNE
The intention of this new edition of one of the greatest of imaginative writers is to make it as comprehensive as possible, and to include his lesser-known, as well as his most popular, works. Jules Verne is universally acclaimed as the founder of modern science fiction and as the author of a number of exciting stories of travel and adventure, but he also produced several historical novels and some acute studies of contemporary life.
The first three books in the series are selected to illustrate several aspects of his work. A Floating City is based on his own experiences when he crossed the Atlantic in the ill-fated Great Eastern, a vessel that was intended to be the greatest achievement of nineteenth-century engineering but which proved to be its greatest failure. The Begum's Fortune, a remarkable work of science fiction, displays its author's gift of foresight, for it contains not only what is probably the first idea of an artificial satellite but a grim foreboding of the modern totalitarian state. Finally, Five Weeks in a Balloon demanded inclusion, for it was through this book that Verne won his success as a writer.
The series is under the general editorship of I. O. Evans, F.R.G.S., compiler of Jules Verne: Master of Science Fiction, and for many years an admirer of Verne and a science fiction addict.
JULES VERNE For the Flag
In this remarkable but little-known book, Jules Verne describes a secret weapon, a self-propelled missile so powerful that it has been compared to the atomic bomb; it is a block-buster of enormous destructive power packed into a bomb of minute size. Its brilliant and half-mad inventor has been kidnapped by a gang of pirates, who want to use the weapon to defend their hideout which they have made on an island in the Bermudas. Embittered by the world's neglect, the inventor agrees to fall in with their plans.
This book had some unusual repercussions when first published. A certain inventor who had written a virulent attack on the French government at once decided that the hero was meant as a caricature of himself, and he brought a libel action against Verne. The only result of the trial was to embitter the inventor still further and to promote the sales of Verne's remarkable forecast of the weapons which he fortunately did not live to see.
Jacket design by Jozef Gross Vissza