Complete and unabridged, with 27 full-page plates by Edwin Hayes, William Pearn and Joseph Heard. Three men cross Africa east to west by hydrogen balloon in 1862, over country no European had seen. This was Verne's first novel and the one that made his publisher offer him a twenty-year contract; the geography is taken from the reports of Burton and Speke, published while he was writing. This edition binds 27 plates by James Cassie, Thomas Chidgey, Edwin Hayes and William Pearn, alongside 42 illustrations restored and coloured for the text.