ALS in French, two pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.25 x 5.25, December 30, 1892. Letter to the artist Raymond Ducrest de Villeneuve. In part (translated): "Please express all our regrets to your wife whom we should so much have liked to meet…When your telegram arrived, we didn’t know you were in Paris, and since we know other Raymonds, and I had some difficulty in recognizing that it was from you. I’ll oblige you therefore always to sign Ducarest. Bombarnac hasn’t appeared yet in book form…that will be at the end of January. I’ll have the book sent to you along with Carpathians. You can count on that.” In fine condition, with uniform toning. Accompanied by a full letter of authenticity from PSA/DNA.
The two books Verne mentions, The Carpathian Castle and Claudius Bombarnac, were numbers 37 and 38 of his Voyages Extraordinaires series. These stories were published in three distinct editions: a ‘pre-original’ version serialized in a periodical, an ‘original’ edition in book form, and a ‘deluxe’ edition with lavish decorations and gilt. Of the fifty-four novels in the Voyages Extraordinaires, all were released in this sequence the only exception being Claudius Bombarnac—the ‘pre-original’ and ‘deluxe’ versions were published in 1892, but the typical book format was not released until 1893. This was probably the cause for Ducrest’s confusion. A choice letter with excellent content regarding his famous science-fiction and adventure novels.
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