utopia of that name, conceived by the French philosopher Étienne Cabet in the bestselling tract Voyage en Icarie (Travels in Icaria, 1840). In 1848, Cabet attempted to launch a real-life Icaria in Texas, but the project slowly fizzled out, drifting around the country and folding for good in Iowa in 1894.55 Befitting the utopian name, the novel undoubtedly exudes hope and excitement about the sublimity of the sky and the possibilities inherent in a practical flying machine. More than a century later, and despite everything that has occurred in the meantime, the theme still has the power to inspire wonder and delight.
However, Robur’s treatment of utopia is far from clear-cut. Robur himself is not an idealized utopian figure out to save society, but rather a brusque exhibitionist whose heroic dimensions, like those of Captain Nemo and several other Verne characters, come largely from his societal revolt.56 For that matter, the overarching ideal behind most utopian schemes—that of a perfectly regulated, ideologically homogenous society—could hardly be expected to sit well in a series so teeming with rebels, eccentrics, free spirits, and individualists as the Extraordinary Voyages. Small wonder that Robur’s only direct references to utopia, in chapters 2 and 17, are scornful ones.
The theme of revolt may also explain why Robur’s opponents, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, are not described in detail or even much differentiated. Their main function is not to play separate parts, but to represent the Weldon Institute and society in general. Like Nadar’s propaganda for the Heavier-Than-Air Society, the novel’s central conflict is not confined to aircraft versus aerostats, but also takes on human terms: Robur versus institute, man versus society, underdog versus establishment. This is a book that has it both ways, dreaming with utopian bravado even as it thumbs its nose at the societal conformity that utopias imply.
Like most of Verne’s novels, Robur was grievously mistreated by English translators.57 Two versions were rushed into print in 1887, but both are unsigned, embarrassing hack jobs. The Clipper of the Clouds (London: Sampson Low) is littered with cuts, mistranslations, new chapter divisions, and other pointless changes; the Walton Watch Company, apparently in a heavy-handed attempt at wordplay, becomes the “Wheelem” in one chapter and the “Wheelton” in another. Robur the Conqueror (New York: Munro, also known as A Trip Round the World in a Flying Machine) is even worse, axing descriptive details mercilessly and importing piles of unauthorized changes and additions; the Weldon Institute is demoted to the Weldon Club, and new un-Vernian character names (J. O. Tombler, George Kerns) appear out of nowhere. For a typical example of how these translations misrepresented Robur’s content and tone, consider the following brief passage from chapter 8 in a close rendering of Verne’s text:
The next day, June 15, at about five a.m., Phil Evans left his cabin. Perhaps that day he would come face to face with the engineer Robur?
In any case, wanting to know why he had not appeared the previous day, he addressed the quartermaster, Tom Turner.
Tom Turner, of English origin, about forty-five years old, barrel-chested, stocky, built of iron, had one of those enormous and distinctive heads in Hogarth style, such as that painter of every kind of Saxon ugliness plotted out with the tip of his brush. If one cares to examine the fourth plate of A Harlot’s Progress, one will find Tom Turner’s head on the shoulders of the prison guard, and one will recognize that his physiognomy has nothing welcoming about it.
“Will we see the engineer Robur today?” said Phil Evans.
“I don’t know,” replied Tom Turner.
The equivalent passage in The Clipper of the Clouds (chapter 10, because of Sampson Low’s restructuring) is markedly abridged:
The next day, the 15th of June, about five o’clock in the morning, Phil Evans left his cabin. Perhaps he would today have a chance of speaking to Robur? Desirous of knowing why he had not appeared the day before, Evans addressed himself to the mate, Tom Turner.
Tom Turner was an Englishman of about forty-five, broad in the shoulders and short in the legs, a man of iron, with one of those enormous characteristic heads that Hogarth rejoiced in.
“Shall we see Mr. Robur to-day?” asked Phil Evans.
“I don’t know,” said Turner.
Munro’s Robur correctly puts the passage in chapter 8, but that version is even worse:
The next morning, the 15th of June, Phil Evans left his cabin at about five o’clock, thinking he might probably meet Robur, but he was unable to see the captain either on the deck or in the dining-room. He resolved to discover, at all events, why Robur had not appeared during the day, and he addressed himself to the foreman, George Kerns. George Kerns was of English origin, about forty-five years of age, with a large and characteristic head surmounting a powerfully built body. A man of a practical turn of mind and of a mechanical knowledge that rendered him invaluable to his captain.
“Shall we see Captain Robur to-day?” inquired Phil Evans.
“I do not know.”
Later English-language editions have merely reprinted one of these two old translations or abridged them still more, producing texts even further away from Verne’s intentions.58 The new from-the-ground-up translation that follows, based directly on the illustrated grand-in-8° Hetzel edition, is the first complete and faithful rendering of the novel into English.
My heartfelt thanks go to all those who generously lent help and advice to the project, including Jean-Michel Margot, Arthur B. Evans, J. Randolph Cox, Frédéric Jaccaud of the Maison d’Ailleurs, and the editorial board of Verniana. They and others have done much to shed light on a truly remarkable book: Robur the Conqueror, Jules Verne’s seminal ode to the possibilities of heavier-than-air flight. The Albatross is waiting for us. Let’s get aboard.
—Alex Kirstukas
Robur
THE CONQUEROR
CHAPTER
1
In which the learned and unlearned worlds are equally baffled
Bang! … Bang! …
The two pistols were fired almost at the same time. A cow, grazing fifty paces away, received one of the bullets in her spine. Even so, she had had nothing to do with the duel.
Neither one of the two adversaries had been hit.
Who were these two gentlemen? That remains unknown, and yet, beyond all doubt, this might have been the occasion to preserve their names for posterity. All that can be said is that the older one was an Englishman, the younger an American. As for indicating where the inoffensive ruminant had just grazed
