Hector Servadac - or - The Career of a Comet

London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington,. Very Good with no dust jacket. 1881. Second Edition. Hardcover. The Second Edition 1881 in English. Stated 'Second Edition' on the Title Page . (First was 1877 published in both French and English). In the Publisher's Very Good Original dark green cloth-bound boards with black titling on a gilt background and black stamped illustration to both spine and front cover. The secondary title - 'The Career of a Comet' is only on the front cover and spine, but not on the title page. Some VERY slight rubbing to the very tips of the corners, and head/tail of the spine but overall the book presents very well. Clean and Tight. Page fore-edges lightly age 'toned', but generally very clean - Printed on good paper. Outer hinges tight. Internally yellow endpapers. Small part of front and all of the rear inner PAPER hinge only, is split. NO Inscriptions. (x) + (4) + 370 pp + Plates (unpaginated). 97 full page b/w engraved plates from illustrations by Paul Dominique Philippoteaux. Not all 'signatures' visible. Some light marks, thumbing, etc, on the odd page, but generally the text block is Very Clean, Tight and Bright. Overall A VG copy. "The story starts with a comet called Gallia, that touches the Earth in its flight and collects a few small chunks of it. The disaster occurs on January 1 of the year 188x in the area around Gibraltar. On the territory that is carried away by the comet there remain a total of thirty-six people of French, English, Spanish and Russian nationality. These people do not realize at first what has happened, and consider the collision an earthquake..." . A handsome early copy. See Images ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall .