Anne T. Wilbur
Though best remembered as an early innovator in science fiction who produced such masterworks as Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne was a prolific storyteller who explored many genres over the course of his literary career. This classic romance, set in Spanish-controlled Peru, highlights Verne's talent as a first-rate plot craftsman.
Pioneering science-fiction writer Jules Verne is the second most translated author of all time (after Agatha Christie.) This translation of his short story A Voyage in a Balloon first appeared in Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art in a May 1852 edition, making it the first of the French writer's stories to be published in English. As Verne writes in this story: "May this terrific recital, while it instructs those who read it,
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