Five Weeks in a Balloon; Or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen. Compiled in French by JULES VERNE, From the Original Notes of Dr. Ferguson. Done into English by William Lackland. Published by William L. Allison Co., New York.
 
Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, A Journey of Discovery by Three Englishmen in Africa is an adventure novel by Jules Verne, published in 1863. It is the first novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a storyline full of adventure and plot twists that keep the reader's interest through passages of technical, geographic, and historical description.[opinion] The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets.
 
Purple hardcover with gilt over spine title, embellished black artistic additions, and floral endpapers. About 7-1/4 x 5 with 267 pp. It states that it has illustrations and I could not find any. Some cover soil with a secure binding, a slightly shifted spine, and a few small tears at the endpaper gutters (front/rear). Clean, brown age-toned pages.