Jules Verne 4 hr 18 min read

Strange trumpet-blasts sound in the night sky over a world that scoffs at heavier-than-air flight, until Robur descends among the balloonists to prove them wrong aboard the Albatross.

Jules Verne's 1886 classic (here in the original French, 'Robur-le-Conquérant') pits the imperious inventor Robur against a club of balloon enthusiasts, championing the airplane's coming age. Visionary, thrilling, prophetic. Read it for one of Verne's boldest technological prophecies, a globe-spanning adventure aboard a marvelous flying ship, in Verne's own words.

In its time

Published in 1886, during the 1880s, lost races and dying earths.

Reading it

4 hr 18 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).