The Fur Country

The Fur Country
	Title page of 1st illustrated French edition
Author	Jules Verne
Original title	Le Pays des fourrures
Translator	N. d’Anvers
Illustrator	Jules Férat and ; Alfred Quesnay de Beaurépaire
Language	French
Series	The Extraordinary Voyages #10
Genre	Adventure novel
Publisher	Pierre-Jules Hetzel
Publication date	1873
Publication place	France
Published in English	1873
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Preceded by	The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa
Followed by	Around the World in Eighty Days

The Fur Country (French: Le Pays des fourrures) or Seventy Degrees North Latitude is an adventure novel by Jules Verne in The Extraordinary Voyages series, first published in 1873. The novel was serialized in Magasin d’Éducation et de Récréation from 20 September 1872 to 15 December 1873. The two-volume first original French edition and the first illustrated large-format edition were published in 1873 by Pierre-Jules Hetzel.^[1] The first English translation by N. D’Anvers (pseudonym of Mrs. Arthur (Nancy) Bell) was also published in 1873.^[2]

Plot summary

In 1859 Lt. Jasper Hobson and other members of the Hudson's Bay Company travel through the Northwest Territories of Canada to Cape Bathurst on the Arctic Ocean on the mission to create a fort at 70 degrees, north of the Arctic Circle. The area they come to is very rich with wildlife and natural resources. Jasper Hobson and his party establish a fort here. At some point, an earthquake occurs, and from then on, laws of physics seem altered (a total eclipse happens to be only partial; tides are not perceived anymore). They eventually realise that they are on an iceberg separated from the sea ice that is drifting south. Hobson does a daily measurement to know the iceberg's location. The iceberg passes the Bering Strait and the iceberg (which is now much smaller, since the warmer waters have melted some parts) finally reaches a small island. A Danish whaling ship finds them. Every member in Hobson's party is rescued and they all survive.

Publication history

1873, UK, London: Sampson Low, Pub date November 1873; first UK edition, translated by N. D'Anvers (Mrs. Arthur (Nancy) Bell), as The Fur Country or Seventy Degrees North Latitude
1874, US, Boston: James Osgood, Pub date 1874; first United States edition
1879, UK, Routledge, Pub date 1879; translation by Henry Frith
1966, UK, London: Arco, Pub date 1966; abridged and edited by I.O. Evans in 2 volumes as The Sun in Eclipse and Through the Behring Strait
1987, Canada, Toronto: NC Press ISBN 0-920053-82-3, Pub date October 1987; new translation by Edward Baxter
2008, UK, Classic Comic Store Ltd, Classics Illustrated (JES) #41 facsimile edition (JES13027), retitled "The Floating Island"

References

^ Cf. Piero Gondolo della Riva: Bibliographie analytique de toutes les œuvres de Jules Verne. Tome I. Société Jules Verne. Pages 36-37. 1977.
^ Von Lintel, Amy (2015). Nancy Bell's Elementary History of Art and the British Origins of Popular Art History (PDF). Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art. pp. 165 (pdf page 5), footnote #9 p178 (pdf page 18).