Fifteen-year-old captain. Around the world in 80 days

French writer Jules Verne (1828-1905) became world-famous as one of the founders of adventure and science fiction literature. His works were always characterized by a combination of fiction and scientific facts, unpredictable plot twists, exciting descriptions of incredible events. This edition includes his novels "The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain" (translated by Ignatiy Petrov) and "Around the World in 80 Days" (translated by Nikolay Gabinsky). The illustrations to the works are by the hand of Leningrad artist Peter Lugansky (1911-1993).
The world-famous writer Jules Verne (1828-1905), one of the founders of adventure and science fiction literature, was born in western France. His father came from a family of lawyers and his mother from a family of shipowners and shipbuilders. Parents paid much attention to the education of Jules: the future writer from childhood attended various educational institutions, where among other subjects studied languages, geography and rhetoric. The boy was especially interested in literature: from a young age, he read adventure novels, preferring those in which the action took place at sea. Father-lawyer hoped that Jules will continue his work, and in 1848 he sent his son to Paris to study law. However, the young man himself to the legal field has never gravitated and, having completed his studies, entered the circle of writers in Paris. There Verne became friends with Dumas-son and, thanks to the participation of Dumas-father, was able to put on the theater stage his first play. Later, the young writer turned to writing novels and short stories, at first published in the Musée des familles. Its editor was looking for an author who could write passionately about science, and Verne, who combined his writing talent with a passion for geography and history, was a perfect fit. His works have always been characterized by a combination of fiction and scientific facts, unpredictable plot twists, exciting descriptions of incredible discoveries and journeys to unknown lands. Success came to Verne in 1863, when the famous publisher Pierre-Jules Etzel published his novel "Five Weeks in a Balloon". This edition includes Verne's novels The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain and Around the World in 80 Days. The plot of "The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain" unfolds around a young sailor Dick Sand, who quite unexpectedly has to take over the management of a whaling schooner in the middle of the ocean. The novel "Around the World in 80 Days" tells about the exciting adventures of an eccentric Englishman Phileas Fogg and his servant, Frenchman Jean Passepartout, who decided to circumnavigate the globe in the shortest possible time.
The illustrations to the works are by the hand of Leningrad artist Pyotr Ivanovich Lugansky (1911-1993). He was a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, an outstanding master of book and easel graphics and a talented poster artist. During World War II, Lugansky was a divisional newspaper artist; he painted battle paintings, sketched the siege of Leningrad and created a whole series of portraits of his comrades-in-arms. In peacetime Lugansky illustrated books of many domestic and foreign classics, including drawings for the first postwar collection of Jules Verne's works.