Backwards to Britain

In 1859, a stockbroker called Jules Verne to England and Scotland with a musician friend. Although re-routed via Bordeaux (ie 'backwards'), they discovered at long last a magical kingdom of steam, wind and rain, poetry and pubs, lochs and bens, Dickens and Scott. The experience so moved Verne that he wrote a book about it, his first full length narrative. The publisher Hetzel thought something more topical might sell better - and the manuscript was set aside. But Verne obstinately persisted as a writer of prose, often starring British heroes or with a Scottish setting. In the end he became the best-selling novelist ever, and the most translated in the world. Backwards to Britain is now published in English for the first time. It is a delightful account of Victorian Liverpool, Edinburgh and London, and a hymn to this strange country. Full of amusing adventures and perceptive analyses