Milestone Monday
On this day, October 2, 1872, Jules Verne (1828-1905) sent his protagonist Phileas Fogg out on the adventure of a lifetime in his novel Around the World in Eighty Days. On the evening of October 2nd, while at the Club playing cards and debating how the world has grown smaller since a new railway section in India had made it possible to travel around the world, Fogg accepts a wager from his comrades for £20,000 to follow the Daily Telegraph’s itinerary of steamers and rails around the world and make it back to London in eighty days.
In observance of this fictional anniversary, we’re looking at The Limited Editions Club (LEC) publication of Around the World in Eighty Days written by Jules Verne and illustrated by Edward A. Wilson (1886-1970). It was published in 1962 and printed in an edition of 1500 copies by Saul and Lillian Marks at The Plantin Press in Los Angeles, California. The illustrations consist of sixteen pen-and-wash drawings by Wilson, reproduced in gravure by the Photogravure and Color Company of New York and then colored by hand in the studio of Walter Fischer.
Wilson, an attendee of the Art Institute of Chicago, illustrated over a dozen books, magazines, and World War II propaganda posters between 1924 and 1950. His vibrant work within LEC’s Around the World in Eighty Days reinforces a sense of wanderlust and adventure throughout the novel. In an eerie coincidence, October 2, 1970 is also the day Wilson passed away after a long struggle with an undisclosed illness.
The Special Collections holds number 289 of this limited-edition publication, from long-standing LEC member Austin Fredric Lutter of Waukesha, Wisconsin.
View more Limited Edition Club posts.
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-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern
