Robinsons sous-marins. Illustrations de G.[eorge Pierre] Dutriac. de DANRIT (DRIANT), Capitaine [Emile Augustin Cyprien] - [c. 1908 (ca. 1910)].

Paris: Ernest Flammarion, Editeur, [c. 1908 (ca. 1910)]. Tall 8vo. 7.75 x 10.75 in. [6], 428 pp. Frontisp., over 100 text illustrations, plates, diagrams (1 double-page map of Mediterranean off of Tunisia). Red pictorial publisher’s cloth over beveled boards, cover art illustration in full colour of deep-sea diver down on the deck of a submarine, gilt lettering & ruling, gilt lettering on spine, a.e.g. (slight bumping to corners, minor shelfwear, slightly shaken), still VG bright copy. First edition, early printing, of this remarkable submarine adventure relating the story of a 200 ton submarine and sailors trapped below the sea thirty fathoms below the Mediterranean off of the coast of North Africa. Driant (1855-1916), was a noted suspense/thriller writer, French Army officer, and politician who wrote under the pseudonym of Capitaine Danrit, and published more military science fiction before World War I than any other writer. He used this work to push for increasing more safety measures and better procedures for submarines in the French Navy. It was first published in English in 1910 in a translation by Frederick Lawton. He was the first high-ranking casualty of the Battle of Verdun during World War I, as he rallied his two battalions of 1200 men in a desperate defense of the Bois de Caures in Flabas buying time for the French High Command to rush troops and weapons into the threatened sector.