![]() ![]() Public interest in fanciful tales of African exploration was at its height, and the book was an instant hit it made Verne financially independent and got him a contract with Jules Hetzel's publishing house, which put out several dozen more works of his for over forty years afterward. ![]() The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets. It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. Much more down to earth-figuratively, if not literally, than his later works, his heroes here encounter no lost civilizations, no anachronistic dinosaurs, and no extraordinary perils beyond that which actual explorers of the era might have met on a balloon voyage across the Dark Continent. ![]() ![]() Five Weeks in a Balloon: Illustrated with 78 original illustrations from Riou and Montaut (1867), from the english edition of 1869.įive Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen (French: Cinq semaines en ballon) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne. ![]()
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