The Crystal City Under the Sea (31 page)

The books are scanned and converted to editable texts with an OCR reader. This is then carefully edited by comparing it to the original book. Obvious typographical errors (inevitable with scanned text) are corrected, but factual and other errors are left intact as written.

Occasionally, a book I have in my collection is replicated in the Gutenberg library or another online source, which saves me the trouble of scanning hundreds of pages. If the text of a book was obtained this way, I converted it to the typeface and formatting I desired for the finished book. I also went through the text to make sure that italics and other special characters—such as mathematical symbols or words in Greek, for example—appear properly.

As with the books scanned from my collection, chapter breaks are made on new pages as well as any special formatting, such as decorative chapter titles or drop caps. Every effort is made to either replicate the appearance of the original book or create a new design appropriate to the era and subject. If the original book was illustrated, I try to track down the best quality copies of these I can find. Sometimes I have these already in my collection. Finally, if the book warrants it, I add footnotes, biographies or explanatory appendices. I do this for several reasons. One is that I feel a need to add something extra for the reader, to set these books apart from a text that might be found online. Another is the need to provide background and context, to help the reader understand and appreciate the full importance of the book they’ve read.

Finally, there are a small number of books that are appearing in English for the first time in their current form. For instance, Arnould Galopin’s
Doctor Omega
(1906) enjoys its first unabridged publication in English.

Doing this is a laborious task, since my command of French is painfully limited. With the aid of translation software, dictionaries, earlier translations and an intimate knowledge of the book itself, the job gets done.

Special attention has been paid to Jules Verne in this regard, who is not only one of my favorite authors but has historically suffered from ridiculously poor translations. For instance, the “standard” translation of
20,000 Leagues
was created by a British Protestant minister, and Verne was a French Catholic liberal. Anything of which the translator didn’t approve was simply cut out. The result was that nearly 20 percent of the book was eliminated! To make things worse, he had a slippery command of French and no grasp at all of science. The result was literally thousands of errors. . .errors which for nearly a century had been blamed on Verne by his American and English readers. Because this translation has been in the public domain for generations, it’s the one most likely to be reprinted

For my new edition of the book, I replaced the missing text and corrected all of the translation errors and factual mistakes (for instance, having Professor Arronax return from the “Badlands” of Nebraska instead of the original version’s “disagreeable territory”). The book also includes numerous maps, appendices, and a detailed schematic of the
Nautilus
.

From the Earth to the Moon
and
Round the Moon
have been translated entirely from scratch, with thousands of words of text restored that have never before been seen in any other English edition. Like the other Verne titles, they contain extensive notes and appendices.

Journey to the Center of the Earth
is another new translation that also includes maps and some three hundred notes. The new editions of
Off on a Comet!
and
Purchase of the North Pole
are based on vintage nineteenth century texts which have been carefully edited for errors and missing text. In addition to the Verne novels I’ve included a brand-new translation of
Doctor Omega
(1906), by Arnould Galopin. This will be the first time this classic novel about a trip to Mars has appeared in English complete and unabridged. The original illustrations are also included.

All of these books were designed for print editions. Adapting the book for ebook editions brought an entirely new set of problems, largely generated by the inherent simple nature of the electronic book. For example, much, if not all, of the special formatting and typography of the originals had to be abandoned. Illustrations could be retained, however, which pleased me since they not only added character to all the books, they were an intrinsic part of many. Leaving the art out of some of them would be like
Alice
without Tenniel.

In the end, I hope to have created not only a library of fascinating books that may be entirely new to many modern readers, but also a kind of monument to those pioneers who laid the foundation for space exploration. For I very much believe that while engineers and scientists made space travel a reality, it was invented by Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne. H.G. Wells, and their scores of less illustrious colleagues who not only bore the torch when science laughed at the possibility of leaving our planet, but inspired those who ultimately made that dream come true.