Antique Ornate Victorian Book Rare 1st US Ed Jules Verne UNDERGROUND CITY 1883 For Sale

Title: Underground City; or, The Child of the Cavern
Author: Jules Verne
Translator: W. H. G. Kingston
Publisher: Porter & Coates, Philadelphia
Date: 1883 (undated, but firmly attributed)
Edition: First American edition
Binding: Publisher’s original brown pictorial cloth, gilt & black stamped
Illustrations: Numerous full-page wood engravings (frontispiece present)
Pagination: 246 pages

This is not one of Porter & Coates’ later “reprint-from-Osgood” issues.

• In the late 1870s, P&C purchased plates for specific Verne titles from Osgood and reissued those.

• Underground City was different — this was new to the American market in 1883.

• This volume represents Porter & Coates’ own first American production, not a recycled plate job.

Underground City sits in a very interesting Verne moment:

• It’s part of Verne’s shift from outward exploration (sea, poles, space) to industrial & subterranean worlds

• The novel taps directly into:

  • 19th-century coal mining culture

  • Victorian fascination with geology and underground civilizations

  • The late-Industrial Age anxiety about what lies beneath progress

And this Porter & Coates binding is peak American Verne:

• Heavy pictorial cloth

• Gilt title panel that actually still pops

• Dense black stamping with allegorical imagery

• Designed to look impressive on a shelf before dust jackets were a thing

This is exactly the sort of book that lives happily next to 20,000 Leagues and Journey to the Center of the Earth in a serious collection.

• Cloth: Very clean, minimal rubbing at spine base & corners

• Gilt: Strong and legible

• Spine: Square, tight, no lean

• Endpapers: Clean

• Interior: Bright, very light scattered foxing only

• Plates: Present and sharp

• No loose signatures, no repairs, no rebacking

This is honestly better than the average surviving copy, which often shows:

• Fraying at the head of spine

• Dull gilt

• Foxed plates

• Cracked hinges