The Clipper of the Clouds

London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1887. First UK Edition, as well as first hardcover and first illustrated. Hardcover. Good. viii, 234 p., interspersed with plates. 19 cm. Frontispiece with tissue guard, title vignette, 41 full-page plates. Half blue leather with blue cloth. Mylar wrap, removed for photos. Gilt trim and 5 raised bands on spine, date 1887 at bottom. Gilt edges. Beautiful blue marbled endpapers. Armorial bookplate on front pastedown for Sir David Salomons of Broomhill, Tunbridge Wells. Binding signed by John Bumpus, Oxford Street. Slightly worn extremities and leather. Foxing to endpapers, first pages and text block edge. Publisher's catalogue referred to on title verso is not included.

The adventures of the mysterious Robur and his flying ship, the Albatross, written more than 16 years before Orville and Wilbur Wright's historic first flight. The book reuses a modified version of one of Benett's illustrations from an earlier work. The plate opposite p. 94 shows the Albatross hovering above a train on the Pacific Railway. This same illustration, without the Albatross, appeared in the French edition of "Around the World in 80 Days" but was omitted from the British and American editions.

John Bumpus, bookdealer, was located at 350 Oxford Street, London from the early 1850s to 1935. The firm is traditionally stated to have begun in Clerkenwell about 1790 but can't be proven to exist before the name is listed in the Holborn area from around 1815. The first Bumpus overcame an insolvency only to drown himself in the Surrey Canal in 1832. His sons carried on the business and, around 1853, the second John Bumpus opened the Oxford Street branch. In 1920 it was bought by Debenhams Ltd.

Sir David Salomons, 1st Baronet (1797 1873) was a leading figure in the 19th century struggle for Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom. He was the first Jewish Sheriff of the City of London and Lord Mayor of London. His Broomhill estate is now the Salomons Museum.

Myers 12. Taves and Michaluk V030.