Drum–roll: we are delighted to unveil to you the gorgeous front cover of Jules Verne’s Mikhail Strogoff! With its deep red textured background, gold foil stamping and the beautiful inset cover illustration, we believe it is a truly elegant first impression of the delights within.
Here we’d like to pay tribute to the amazing design team of David Allan and Beattie Alvarez, who worked long hours to create the most beautiful design possible.
Very exciting–we have now sent off the digital files for Jules Verne’s Mikhail Strogoff to the printer! Quite a long way to go yet in production, with ozalids(digital proofs), printing and all the associated extras to come, but it was wonderful to see the complete files of what is going to be an absolutely sumptuous book!
In next week or two, we’ll be uploading a pic of the splendid cover but in the meantime, here’s the finalised back cover blurb, to whet your appetite:
Russia, late 19th century. The Empire is in great peril, and only one man can save it: the bold and resourceful young messenger Mikhail Strogoff. In a desperate race against time, he must face great dangers if he is to deliver his warning, as foreign armies mass on the border and a traitor lurks ready to strike. But is it already too late?
The first full English translation in over a hundred years of legendary author Jules Verne’s thrilling adventure novel.
Sophie Masson here, co-director of Eagle Books. We thought you might appreciate an update on what’s been going on here as we work on our wonderful project.![WP_20150608_001[1]](https://eaglebooksadventure.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/wp_20150608_0011.jpg)
Sub-heading reads, ‘the traitor Ivan Ogareff’
Sub-heading reads ‘God gives ineffable consolations for the afflicted’
But the appeal of Verne’s books still translates well to the theatre: if you are in Paris this October, you might like to go and check out the brand new musical, Le voyage extraordinaire de Jules Verne, featuring a 13 year old author voyaging in the world of his own books in an amazing and lively adventure!
A very exciting update to unveil today–the completed, full colour illustration by David Allan for the cover of the limited edition of Jules Verne’s Mikhail Strogoff! Isn’t it just gorgeous! Imagine it inset into the deep red background of the hard cover–it’s going to look just stunning.
When you’re translating a work such as Jules Verne’s Mikhail Strogoff, which is such an epic journey across so much country, it’s as well as to keep a good grasp of geography, and that’s exactly what Stephanie Smee has been doing. But it’s not just maps per see she has to look at and pore over; it’s actually old maps, for while geography itself might not have changed, political geography has, and the map of the Russian Empire in 1876 looks very different to the map of the Russian Federation today. Here she is with one of those lovely old maps she’s been consulting–and next to that, a copy of the original edition of the book, which she’s been using as her base text.
And a big thank you is due to all our wonderful contributors! Though we didn’t meet our target, we are very pleased to have raised such a substantial amount, which will greatly help in funding the production of the beautiful limited edition of Jules Verne’s Mikhail Strogoff. We really appreciate all the support, both financial and moral, that we have received. In the next few weeks, we’ll also be putting a pre-order form on the website, for all those of you who missed out on the crowdfunding campaign. In the meantime, on the Pre-order page, you’ll find the contact email to which you can send an email registering your interest. Meanwhile, work continues apace on the book. Stephanie has just finished the translation of Part One of the book and Sophie has been editing it, while David has been working hard on the final colouring of the cover illustration. More updates and news soon!
Exciting news! Our illustrator, David Allan has finished the line work for the cover illustration of the book. Isn’t it gorgeously evocative! Look out for the completed colour illustration to appear over the next few days.
There’s an interesting interview with one of the Eagle Books directors, Sophie Masson, on the Crowdfundit site, which looks specifically at issues and elements of crowdfunding production of a book.
You can read the full interview here.
The epic journey of our hero Mikhail Strogoff has inspired some real-life travellers to follow in his footsteps across the vastness of Russia, recording their journeys in words and pictures. We’re collecting such books at the moment as part of the background and inspiration for our art director’s creative work, and thought you might like a glimpse of two particularly beautiful books about such journeys: photographer Olivier Sprung’s magnificent illustrated book, Michel Strogoff de Moscou a Irkoutsk(Romain Pages Editions, France) which features extracts from Jules Verne’s novel alongside gorgeous photographs of the various places; and Geo Magazine’s fabulous coffee-table book, Voyage en Russie sur les traces de Michel Strogoff, with text by journalist Remy Michel and beautiful photographs by Olivier Martel. Even if you don’t read French, the books are worth looking at for the sake of the magnificent photographs which illustrate the extraordinary natural, architectural and human diversity and colour of Russia even today.
Eagle Books 