INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME FIFTEEN
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IN "The Exploration of the World " we have this brilliant romancer holding his fancy under control and speaking for once in simplest truthfulness. He who had so thoroughly read up in geographies and books of travel that he might make stories from them, was perhaps of all men best fitted for the task of telling in earnest what real men had really done in the demarcation of the world. In these volumes there was no need for the writer to create romance. He had only to appreciate and make visible to others the romance which already existed in overflowing measure in the daring deeds of the great explorers.
The first book of this set, "The World Outlined" was published in 1878, but the final volume did not appear until several years later. Some portions of this history of exploration had been already prepared and written out for Americans in masterly fashion, as for instance the life of Columbus by Washington Irving, the conquests of Mexico and Peru by Prescott. These have been omitted from the present edition.
During the intervals of this work Verne was patiently gathering fresh material for its completion. How seriously and thoroughly the labor of preparation was undertaken he himself points out for us. He says: "In order to give this work all the accuracy possible, I have called in the aid of a man whom I with justice regard as one of the most competent geographers of the present day, M. Gabriel Marcel, attached to the Bibliotheque Nationale. With the advantage of his acquaintance with several foreign languages which are unknown to me, we have been able to go to the fountain-head, and to draw all our information from absolutely
