The Castle of the Carpathians

Rating:
Summary: Almost painful to finish
Review: The Castle of the Carpathians is a difficult story to read as the situations created are foreign to modern day experience. Jules Verne has a way of describing people, places, and events which makes a reader want to tell him to "Get on with it!" The build-up to set the stage before each significant event appears to wander off aimlessly. Each time it eventually becomes clear what Verne was getting at and the story gets back on track.

Verne's descriptions of wanderings through the castle may make sense to someone who has been in a similarly constructed castle, however to anyone else it is impossible to follow the descriptions, and it becomes a jumble of places with vaguely familiar names. Perhaps this is due to the writing style changes of 100+ years and a lack (on my part) of familiarity with late 19th century literary style. But for me this was a difficult story to finish. I persevered and completed it, but my book list does not contain a recommendation for The Castle of the Carpathians.

Rating:
Summary: Carpathian Castle available again after 100 years
Review: This book is apparently a lasergraphic reproduction of the edition published in 1900 by the Saalfield Publishing Company of New York and Chicago. The text reproduces fairly well as it is digitally enhanced but the illustrations in low resoloution gray scale leave much to be desired. They do however give the general idea of the original. The text is identical to that published by the Merriam Company in 1894 and Sampson and Low (London, 1893). Given that there have been no republications of this early work, this Fredonia edition makes the original historical text available at a reasonable price to a wide audience. Using print-on-demand technology it is now possible to offer these books without the expense of a maintaining a large inventory. Given the current interest in Jules Verne these Fredonia titles will undoubtedly find a good following among both amateur and professional Verne scholars. Unfortunately the scanty information provided by the publisher about the sources for these books leaves it up to outside reviewers to provide this historical information as best they can.

Rating:
Summary: Carpathian Castle available again after 100 years
Review: This book is apparently a lasergraphic reproduction of the edition published in 1900 by the Saalfield Publishing Company of New York and Chicago. The text reproduces fairly well as it is digitally enhanced but the illustrations in low resoloution gray scale leave much to be desired. They do however give the general idea of the original. The text is identical to that published by the Merriam Company in 1894 and Sampson and Low (London, 1893). Given that there have been no republications of this early work, this Fredonia edition makes the original historical text available at a reasonable price to a wide audience. Using print-on-demand technology it is now possible to offer these books without the expense of a maintaining a large inventory. Given the current interest in Jules Verne these Fredonia titles will undoubtedly find a good following among both amateur and professional Verne scholars. Unfortunately the scanty information provided by the publisher about the sources for these books leaves it up to outside reviewers to provide this historical information as best they can.