Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

If you're going to read one of the great classics of literature¿and you should¿don't pick up this edition. It is a reprint of a version that dates back to the 1870s and was exposed more than 40 years ago for cutting nearly one-quarter of Verne's story and mistranslating much of the remainder. Lewis Mercier was the man responsible for this travesty, yet the publisher tries to conceal what they've done by claiming the translation is by an anonymous hand. An attempt is made to give the volume respectability by adding an introduction and notes by Victoria Blake¿who has no particular credentials for the task. And that leads to goofs¿for instance, she claims Verne never wrote a novel about invisibility, so she mustn't know about the author's Secret of Wilhelm Storitz. In fact, Blake's simply used the better editions that readers are advised to consult. If you want to read Verne's novel, pick up the elegant Naval Institute Press edition, in a modern, complete, updated translation, with commentary by the leading American Verne expert today, Walter James Miller. That book also comes with many of the artistic engravings that illustrated the original French first edition (no illustrations are to be found in the B&N Mercier reprint). Less attractive but more academic is the Oxford Classics version of Twenty Thousand Leagues. Either way, pick one of these to discover this novel, and don't be fooled by the appearance of respectability this book provides. This review is posted on behalf of the North American Jules Verne Society by Jean-Michel Margot, president NAJVS.Show Less