Robur the Conqueror

by Jules Verne

Overview

First complete English translation of Jules Verne's classic novel of flight

At the Weldon Institute in Philadelphia, a mob of zealous balloon enthusiasts plans to conquer the sky in a state-of-the-art dirigible. When a stranger, the mysterious Robur, declares that the future belongs not to balloons but to heavier-than-air flying machines, the Institute scornfully dismisses the idea. But Robur demands vengeance—and has a unique flying machine that will allow him to take it.

By turns an impassioned argument for aviation, a wild proto-steampunk adventure, and a jubilant celebration of the dream of flight, Robur the Conqueror ranks among Jules Verne's most iconic and influential works. Its technological speculations, including the unforgettable aircraft Albatross, are a vibrant snapshot of nineteenth-century scientific innovation.

This, the first complete English translation of Verne's 1886 novel, includes an insightful introduction, explanatory chapter notes, never-before-published glimpses of Verne's original manuscript, all the first-edition illustrations by Léon Benett, and an up-to-date Verne biography and primary and secondary bibliography. It is an essential new edition of a seminal science fiction classic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647992064
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	02/26/2020
Pages:	138
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.35(d)

About the Author

JULES VERNE (1828–1905) was the first author to popularize the literary genre that has become known as science fiction. ALEX KIRSTUKAS has published and presented on Verne's work for both academic and popular audiences, and is a trustee of the North American Jules Verne Society as well as the editor of its peer-reviewed publication Extraordinary Voyages. ARTHUR B. EVANS is an emeritus professor of French at DePauw University and winner of the 2014 Cyrano prize for his scholarly contributions to the field of French science fiction. He has published numerous books and articles on Jules Verne and other early writers of French science fiction, serves as the managing editor of Science Fiction Studies, and is the general editor of Wesleyan's Early Classics of Science Fiction series.

Date of Birth:

February 8, 1828

Date of Death:

March 24, 1905

Place of Birth:

Nantes, France

Place of Death:

Amiens, France

Education:

Nantes lycée and law studies in Paris

Read an Excerpt

Chapter IMYSTERIOUS SOUNDS

Bang! Bang!

The pistol shots were almost simultaneous. A cow peacefully grazing fifty yards away received one of the bullets in her back. She had nothing to do with the quarrel all the same.

Neither of the adversaries was hit.

Who were these two gentlemen? We do not know, although this would be an excellent opportunity to hand down their names to posterity. All we can say is that the elder was an Englishman and the younger an American, and both of them were old enough to know better.

So far as recording in what locality the inoffensive bovine had just tasted her last tuft of herbage, nothing can be easier. It was on the left bank of Niagara, not far from the suspension bridge which joins the American to the Canadian bank three miles from the falls.

The Englishman stepped up to the American.

"I contend, nevertheless, that it was 'Rule Britannia!'"

"And I say it was 'Yankee Doodle!'" replied the young American.

The dispute was about to begin again when one of the seconds--doubtless in the interests of the milk trade--interposed.

"Suppose we say it was 'Rule Doodle' and 'Yankee Britannia' and adjourn to breakfast?"

This compromise between the national airs of Great Britain and the United States was adopted to the general satisfaction. The Americans and Englishmen walked up the left bank of the Niagara on their way to Goat Island, the neutral ground between the falls. Let us leave them in the presence of the boiled eggs and traditional ham, and floods enough of tea to make the cataract jealous, and trouble ourselves no more about them. It is extremelyunlikely that we shall again meet with them in this story.

Which was right, the Englishman or the American? It is not easy to say. Anyhow the duel shows how great was the excitement, not only in the new but also in the old world, with regard to an inexplicable phenomenon which for a month or more had driven everybody to distraction.

Never had the sky been so much looked at since the appearance of man on the terrestrial globe. The night before an aerial trumpet had blared its brazen notes through space immediately over that part of Canada between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Some people had heard those notes as "Yankee Doodle," others had heard them as "Rule Britannia," and hence the quarrel between the Anglo-Saxons, which ended with the breakfast on Goat Island. Perhaps it was neither one nor the other of these patriotic tunes, but what was undoubted by all was that these extraordinary sounds had seemed to descend from the sky to the earth.

What could it be? Was it some exuberant aeronaut rejoicing on that sonorous instrument of which the Renommée makes such obstreperous use?

No! There was no balloon and there were no aeronauts. Some strange phenomenon had occurred in the higher zones of the atmosphere, a phenomenon of which neither the nature nor the cause could be explained. One day it appeared over America; forty-eight hours afterwards it was over Europe; a week later it was in Asia over the Celestial Empire.

Hence in every country of the world--empire, kingdom, or republic--there was anxiety which it was important to allay. If you hear in your house strange and inexplicable noises, do you not at once endeavor to discover the cause? And if your search is in vain, do you not leave your house and take up your quarters in another? But in this case the house was the terrestrial globe! There are no means of leaving that house for the moon--or Mars, or Venus, or Jupiter, or any other planet of the solar system. And so of necessity we have to find out what is going on, not in the infinite void, but within the atmospherical zones. In fact, if there is no air there is no noise, and as there was a noise--that famous trumpet, to wit--the phenomenon must occur in the air, the density of which invariably diminishes, and which does not extend for more than six miles 'round our spheroid.

Naturally newspapers by the thousands took up the question and treated it in every form, throwing on it both light and darkness, recording many things about it true or false, alarming and tranquillizing their readers--as the sale required--and almost driving ordinary people mad. At one blow party politics dropped unheeded--and the affairs of the world went on none the worse for it.

But what could this thing be? There was not an observatory that was not applied to. If an observatory could not give a satisfactory answer, what was the use of observatories? If astronomers, who doubled and tripled the stars a hundred thousand million miles away, could not explain a phenomenon occurring only a few miles off, what was the use of astronomers?

The observatory at Paris was very guarded in what it said. In the mathematical section they had not thought the statement worth noticing; in the meridional section they knew nothing about it; in the physical observatory they had not come across it; in the geodetic section they had had no observation; in the meteorological section there had been no record; in the calculating room they had had nothing to deal with. At any rate this confession was a frank one, and the same frankness characterized the replies from the observatory of Montsouris and the magnetic station in the park of St. Maur. The same respect for the truth distinguished the Bureau des Longitudes.

The provinces were slightly more affirmative. Perhaps in the night of the fifth and the morning of the sixth of May there had appeared a flash of light of electrical origin which lasted about twenty seconds. At the Pic du Midi this light appeared between nine and ten in the evening. At the Meteorological Observatory on the Puy de Dome the light had been observed between one and two o'clock in the morning; at Mont Ventoux in Provence it had been seen between two and three o'clock; at Nice it had been noticed between three and four o'clock; while at the Semnoz Alps between Annecy, Le Bourget, and Le Léman, it had been detected just as the zenith was paling with the dawn.

Now it evidently would not do to disregard these observations altogether. There could be no doubt that a light had been observed at different places, in succession, at intervals, during some hours. Hence, whether it had been produced from many centers in the terrestrial atmosphere, or from one center, it was plain that the light must have traveled at a speed of over one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

In the United Kingdom there was much perplexity. The observatories were not in agreement. Greenwich would not consent to the proposition of Oxford. They were agreed on one point, however, and that was: "It was nothing at all!"

But, said one, "It was an optical illusion!" While the other contended that, "It was an acoustical illusion!" And so they disputed. Something, however, was, it will be seen, common to both: "It was an illusion."

Between the observatory of Berlin and the observatory of Vienna the discussion threatened to end in international complications; but Russia, in the person of the director of the observatory at Pulkowa, showed that both were right. It all depended on the point of view from which they attacked the phenomenon, which, though impossible in theory, was possible in practice.

In Switzerland, at the observatory of Sautis in the canton of Appenzell, at the Righi, at the Gäbriss, in the passes of the St. Gothard, at the St. Bernard, at the Julier, at the Simplon, at Zurich, at Somblick in the Tyrolean Alps, there was a very strong disinclination to say anything about what nobody could prove--and that was nothing but reasonable.

But in Italy, at the meteorological stations on Vesuvius, on Etna in the old Casa Inglesi, at Monte Cavo, the observers made no hesitation in admitting the materiality of the phenomenon, particularly as they had seen it by day in the form of a small cloud of vapor, and by night in that of a shooting star. But of what it was they knew nothing.

Scientists began at last to tire of the mystery, while they continued to disagree about it, and even to frighten the lowly and the ignorant, who, thanks to one of the wisest laws of nature, have formed, form, and will form the immense majority of the world's inhabitants. Astronomers and meteorologists would soon have dropped the subject altogether had not, on the night of the 26th and 27th, the observatory of Kautokeino at Finmark, in Norway, and during the night of the 28th and 29th that of Isfjord at Spitzbergen--Norwegian one and Swedish the other--found themselves agreed in recording that in the center of an aurora borealis there had appeared a sort of huge bird, an aerial monster, whose structure they were unable to determine, but who, there was no doubt, was showering off from his body certain corpuscles which exploded like bombs.

In Europe not a doubt was thrown on this observation of the stations in Finmark and Spitzbergen. But what appeared the most phenomenal about it was that the Swedes and Norwegians could find themselves in agreement on any subject whatever.

There was a laugh at the asserted discovery in all the observatories of South America, in Brazil, Peru, and La Plata, and in those of Australia at Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne; and Australian laughter is very catching.

To sum up, only one chief of a meteorological station ventured on a decided answer to this question, notwithstanding the sarcasms that his solution provoked. This was a Chinaman, the director of the observatory at Zi-Ka-Wey which rises in the center of a vast plateau less than thirty miles from the sea, having an immense horizon and wonderfully pure atmosphere. "It is possible," said he, "that the object was an aviform apparatus--a flying machine!"

What nonsense!

Table of Contents

Introduction
Robur the Conqueror
Appendix I: The Original Ending
Appendix II: Who's Who in the Air
Notes
Bibliography
Jules Gabriel Verne: A Biography
About the Contributors

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"One of Verne's most compelling and enjoyable novels within his Extraordinary Voyages series, this is a very important work and an integral piece of the Jules Verne corpus."—Peter Schulman, translator of Jules Verne's The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz

"Jules Verne, with his legendary prescience and uncanny ability to make scientific prophecies, explores in this book the dream of flight in heavier-than-air machines. Along the way, he provides us with a fascinating look into challenging scientific disputes, as well as into the startlingly prejudicial and imperialistic views of the nineteenth century. A gripping read.""—Mario Livio, astrophysicist and author of Brilliant Blunders

"One of Verne's most compelling and enjoyable novels within his Extraordinary Voyages series, this is a very important work and an integral piece of the Jules Verne corpus."—Peter Schulman, translator of Jules Verne's The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz

Editorial Reviews

"[T]hrillingly captures the passion and excitement of early aviation and, more poetically, the enchantment of flight."—Michael Dirda, Barnes & Noble

"[T]hrillingly captures the passion and excitement of early aviation and, more poetically, the enchantment of flight."—Michael Dirda, Barnes & Noble

"One of Verne's most compelling and enjoyable novels within his Extraordinary Voyages series, this is a very important work and an integral piece of the Jules Verne corpus."—Peter Schulman, translator of Jules Verne's The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz

"Jules Verne, with his legendary prescience and uncanny ability to make scientific prophecies, explores in this book the dream of flight in heavier-than-air machines. Along the way, he provides us with a fascinating look into challenging scientific disputes, as well as into the startlingly prejudicial and imperialistic views of the nineteenth century. A gripping read.""—Mario Livio, astrophysicist and author of Brilliant Blunders

"One of Verne's most compelling and enjoyable novels within his Extraordinary Voyages series, this is a very important work and an integral piece of the Jules Verne corpus."—Peter Schulman, translator of Jules Verne's The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz

From the Publisher