Jules Verne 'Voyages Extraordinaires' Composite Frontispiece by Édouard Riou, 1860s
This composite frontispiece unites two of Jules Verne's landmark Voyages Extraordinaires — 'Cinq Semaines en Ballon' and 'Voyage au Centre de la Terre' — in a single breathtaking engraving. A hydrogen balloon drifts over an African desert landscape while below, the viewer plunges into the subterranean world of Axel and Professor Lidenbrock: vast cave chambers, an underground sea, and towering prehistoric mushrooms dwarf tiny explorers in the abyss. Édouard Riou's masterful cross-hatching conjures both grandeur and dread.
From the skies of Africa to the mushroom jungles at Earth's core — Verne dared to go everywhere, and Riou dared to draw it all. Two impossible journeys, one impossible image.
“CINQ SEMAINES EN BALLON VOYAGE AU CENTRE DE LA TERRE PAR Jules Verne VOYAGES EXTRAORDINAIRES”
