Sunday 9 March 2014

Hector Servadac

Hector Servadac, one of Jules Verne's fifty four Extraordinary Voyages, was translated into English and published in two volumes as To The Sun and Off On A Comet but is now referred to as Off On A Comet. Thus, when I ordered Off On A Comet from the public library and received To The Sun and Off On A Comet in one volume entitled The Space Novels of Jules Verne, I thought that I was getting the novel that I had requested and another that I had not heard of whereas the one that I had not heard of is simply the first part of the work that I did want and Off On A Comet in a volume to itself would have been only the second half.

While agreeing that Hector Servadac is a deplorable title, I suggest that the original subtitle, "Voyages And Adventures Across The Solar World," might instead serve as an overall title that would both express the contents and convey the scope of this single novel.

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