As collections go, this is a beautifully presented book that would look good in anyone's home Library. It's very well put together, and at a hefty two inches thick and with the seven stories contained, is certainly very good value for money indeed.

Thankfully, it contains the more accurate English translations of Verne's best known works that remain more true to Jules original stories as first published in French.

However, nothing is perfect. I was a little disappointed that while the description says there are illustrations, essentially there are none,at all. The collection would have benefited from the superb pieces of the time by artist Edouard Riou and the like. While there is an inside cover drawing of an old world map, you are otherwise looking, from that point on, at almost 1200 pages of straight text.

There is however a very nicely written foreword, and other than the lack of illustrations which I think would have broken the stories up nicely, this is an excellent book full of wonderful stories from an author well ahead of his time.

Partially my fault I guess for not reading between the lines of the description as bought as a 90th birthday present for my father and sent to him directly. Upon him receiving my gift to him, he advised of what the content of the book was. Which according to his description was the verbatim translation into script like sections and NOT the actual stories. Very annoyed considering the cost of the book as this standard of product from Mighty Ape is very much not what I come to expect from them as their usual description of their products are usually very informative and accurate.