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.

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.

Jules Verne’s Mikhail Strogoff isn’t just a fantastic adventure, full of vivid characters and non-stop action: it’s also an extraordinary journey by road and rail and river through a vast stretch of Russia, from Moscow to Irkutsk. And to give you a glimpse of some the places along that journey, here’s a little clip we’ve made for your enjoyment.