Worlds Known and Unknown (hardback)

Jules Verne’s series of science fiction and adventure tales, the “Extraordinary Journeys,” were subtitled “Worlds Known and Unknown,” so that is an appropriate title for this volume of the Palik Series, edited by the North American Jules Verne Society and devoted to the author’s stories not previously translated for the English-speaking world. Worlds Known and Unknown is an anthology featuring a variety of astonishing shorter works, with background and illustrations chosen from the original engravings that accompanied the first French publication and other historical sources.  Beginning with his own adventures, Verne recounts several harrowing balloon ascensions, followed by a ghostly tale, and two satires of evolution—a man leading an army of apes, and a P.T. Barnum-type huckster unearthing a prehistoric human giant in New York!  Here also is Verne’s stage recreation of a romance between Mona Lisa and Leonardo da Vinci, and a series of fantastic stories by Jules Verne’s son and collaborator, Michel Verne.