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{{Short description|1877 novel by Jules Verne}}
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{{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name = Off on a Comet
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| followed_by = [[The Child of the Cavern]]
}}
'''''Off on a Comet''''' ({{lang-fr|Hector Servadac}}) is an 1877 [[science fiction]] novel by French writer [[Jules Verne]]. It recounts the journey of several people carried away by a comet contacting the Earth. The comet passes by various bodies in the Solar System before returning the travelers to the Earth.
==Plot==
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They first notice weight loss: Captain Servadac's [[Adjutant#France|adjutant]] Ben Zoof, to his amazement, jumps {{convert|12|m|abbr=on}} high. Zoof with Servadac also soon notice that the alternation of day and night is shortened to six hours, that east and west have changed sides, and that water begins to boil at {{convert|66|°C|abbr=on}}, from which they rightly deduce that the atmosphere became thinner and pressure dropped. At the beginning of their stay in Gallia they notice the Earth with the Moon, but think it is an unknown planet. Other important information is obtained through their research expedition with a ship, which the comet also took.
During the voyage they discover a mountain chain blocking the sea, which they initially consider to be the [[Mediterranean Sea]] and then they find the island of [[Formentera]] (before the catastrophe a part of the [[Balearic Islands]]), where they find French astronomer Palmyrin Rosette, who helps them to solve all the mysterious phenomena. They are all on a comet which Rosette discovered
A new research expedition determines the circumference of Gallia to be {{convert|2320|km|abbr=on}}. The mass of the comet is calculated by Rosette. He determines it at 209,346 billion tonnes. For the calculation he uses spring scales and forty 5-franc silver coins, the weight of which on earth equaled exactly {{convert|1|kg|abbr=on}}. However, the owner of the scales, Isaac Hakkabut, has rigged the instrument, so the results have to be cut by a quarter.
The involuntary travelers through the Solar system do not have any hope for long-term colonization of their new world, because it is lacking arable land. They feed themselves mainly with the animals that were left on the chunk carried away by Gallia. One strange phenomenon they meet is that the sea on the comet does not freeze, even though the temperature drops below the freezing point (believed to be due to the theory that a stagnant water surface resists freezing longer than when rippled by wind). Once a stone is thrown into the sea, the sea freezes in a few moments. The ice is completely smooth and allows skating and [[sleigh]] sailing.
Despite the dire situation in which the castaways find themselves, old power disputes from Earth continue on Gallia, because the French and English officers consider themselves the representatives of their respective governments. The object of their interest is for example previously Spanish [[Ceuta]], which has become an island on the comet and which both parties start to consider an unclaimed territory. Captain Servadac therefore attempts to occupy Ceuta, without success. It turns out that the island has been occupied by Englishmen, who maintain a connection to their base at Gibraltar through an [[optical telegraph]].
Gallia gets to an extreme point of its orbit and begins its return to Earth. In early November Rossete's refined calculations show that there will be a new collision with the Earth, exactly two years after the first, again on January 1. Therefore, the idea is conceived of leaving the comet at collision time in a [[balloon]]. The proposal is approved and the castaways make a balloon out of the sails of their ship. In mid-December there is an earthquake, in which Gallia partially falls apart and loses a fragment, which probably kills all Englishmen in Ceuta and Gibraltar. When on January 1 there is again a contact between the atmospheres of Gallia and Earth, the space castaways leave in the balloon and land safely two kilometers from [[Mostaganem]] in Algeria.
==Main characters==
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*Nina, a cheerful young Italian goatherd (girl).
*Pablo, a Spanish boy
*[[Colonel]] Heneage Finch Murphy and [[Major (rank)|Major]] [[Sir]] John Temple Oliphant of Britain's [[Gibraltar]] garrison. In the French original Murphy is actually a Brigadier (General), a rank too high to be the butt of Verne's joking description as playing an interminable game of [[chess]] without a pawn being taken. The translator accordingly demoted him to the rank of Colonel, a rank less likely to cause offense.
*Palmyrin Rosette, a French astronomer and discoverer of the comet and previously Servadac's teacher.
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The book was first published in France (Hetzel Edition, 1877).
The English translation by Ellen E. Frewer, was published in England by Sampson Low (November 1877), and the U.S. by Scribner Armstrong<ref>{{cite
Verne had problems with this novel from the very beginning.<ref>
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At the same time George Munro<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lccn.loc.gov/01009819|title=Library of Congress catalog record|access-date=2008-08-31}}</ref> in New York published an anonymous translation in a newspaper format as #43 of his ''Seaside Library'' books. This is the only literal translation containing all the dialogue and scientific discussions. Unfortunately the translation stops after Part II Chapter 10, and continues with the Frewer translation.
The same year a still different translation by Edward Roth was published in [[Philadelphia]] by Claxton, Remsen, and Heffelfinger<ref>{{cite
Occasional reprints of these books were published around 1900 by Norman L. Munro, F.M. Lupton, Street&Smith, Hurst and Co., and Federal Book Co.
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In 1926, the first two issues of ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' carried ''Off on a Comet'' in two parts.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pulpmags.org/collections/flb/ams19260400/index.html#p=6|title=Off on a Comet, Book I. Amazing Stories (April 1926)|editor=Hugo Gernsback|date=1926|publisher=Experimenter Publishing Co|location=NY}} and {{cite web|url=https://www.pulpmags.org/collections/flb/ams19260500/index.html#p=54|title=Off on a Comet, Book II. Amazing Stories (May 1926)|editor=Hugo Gernsback|date=1926|publisher=Experimenter Publishing Co|location=NY}}</ref>
In 1959, ''[[Classics Illustrated]]'' released ''Off on a Comet'' as a [[graphic novel]] (issue #149).{{
In 1960 Dover (New York) re-published the Roth translations, unabridged, as ''Space Novels'' by Jules Verne, including reproductions of the original engravings from the first French editions. In 1965 the I. O. Evans condensation of the Frewer translation was published in two volumes as ''Anomalous Phenomena'' and ''Homeward Bound'' by ARCO, UK and Associated Booksellers, US. University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, re-published the Frewer translation in 2000.{{
In September 2007, Solaris Books (U.K.) published ''Off on a Comet'' as an appendix to ''[[Splinter (novel)|Splinter]]'' by [[Adam Roberts (British writer)|Adam Roberts]], as a slightly edited version of the Parke edition.{{
In a 2007 blog post on ''[[The Guardian]]'', Adam Roberts reviewed one 1877 translation. Roberts felt that the translation was inaccurate and incomplete.<ref>Roberts, Adam (2007-09-11). [https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/sep/11/julesvernedeservesabetter "Jules Verne deserves a better translation service"]. ''[[The Guardian]]''.</ref> Roberts' criticism is, however, somewhat vindicated by the fact that the version of ''Hector Servadac'' he was criticizing was the corrupt version of the original Frewer translation found on Project Gutenberg (based on the Parke edition, above), which was made from a different French original than the one he was using.{{
In October 2007, Choptank Press published an on-line version of Munro's 1877 ''Hector Servadac, Travels and Adventures through the Solar System'' <ref>
{{cite web|url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/sherwood/Servadac02.htm|title=Hector Servadac, Travels and Adventures through the Solar System|date=October 2007|publisher=Choptank Press|access-date=2008-12-01|editor=Norman Wolcott}}</ref> edited by Norman Wolcott, followed (December 2007) by ''Hector Servadac: The Missing Ten Chapters from the Munro Translation''<ref>
{{cite web|url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/sherwood/Comet2-4.htm|others=Translated by Norman Wolcott and Christian Sanchez|publisher=Choptank Press|title=Hector Servadac: The Missing Ten Chapters from the Munro Translation|date=December 2007|access-date=2008-12-01}}</ref> newly translated by Norman Wolcott and Christian Sánchez.{{
In 2008, the Choptank Press published a combined book version ''Hector Servadac: Travels and Adventures Through the Solar System'' containing: (I) An enlarged replica of Seaside Library edition #43 as published by George Munro, New York, 1877; (II)A typeset version of the same in large readable type; (III) A new translation of the last 10 chapters from the original French by Norman Wolcott and Christian Sanchez in the literal style of the remainder of the book; and (IV) 100 illustrations from the original publications enlarged to {{convert|8+1/2|x|11|in|adj=on|0}} format.<ref>
{{cite book|title=Hector Servadac: Travels and Adventures through the Solar System|
==Antisemitism controversy==
{{Unreferenced section|date=December 2008}}<!-- this is being worked on: 12/2008 varnesavant-->The first appearance in French was in the serial magazine ''{{ill|Magasin d'éducation et de récréation|fr}}'', commencing on 1 January 1877 and ending on 15 December 1877. It was in June 1877 when chapter 18 appeared with the introduction and description of Isac Hakhabut:
{{
This prompted the chief rabbi of Paris, [[Zadoc Kahn]], to write a letter to Hetzel, objecting that this material had no place in a magazine for young people. Hetzel and Verne co-signed a reply indicating they had no intention of offending anyone, and promising to make corrections in the next edition. However Verne left the salvage work to Hetzel, asking Hetzel at the end of the summer, "Have you arranged the affair of the Jews in Servadac?" The principal change was to replace "Jew" with "Isac" throughout, and to add "Christian countries" to those where Hakhabut plied his trade. The anti-semitic tone remained however, sales were lower than for other Verne books, and the American reprint houses saw little profit with only a single printing by George Munro in a newspaper format. Even the Hetzel revised version has never been translated into English, as both Victorian translations were made from the magazine version. This has caused some modern reviewers to unfairly criticize the early translators, assuming that they had inserted the anti-semitic material which Verne actually wrote.
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==Film adaptations==
* ''[[Valley of the Dragons (1961 film)|Valley of the Dragons]]'' a Columbia Picture directed by [[Edward Bernds]]
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* ''[[Na kometě]]'' ("On the Comet"), directed by [[Karel Zeman]], [[Czechoslovakia]], 1970.
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* ''Off on a Comet'', an animated adaptation, directed by [[Richard Slapczynski]], Australia, 1979.
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A 1962 version of the novel was to have been filmed by [[American International Pictures]] but the film was never made. Various 1962 issues of [[Charlton Comics]] offered a contest where a winner would visit the set of the film.<ref>Charlton, ''Reptisaurus The Terrible'', Vol. 2, No. 3, Charlton Comics Jan 1962</ref>
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[[Category:French novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:French science fiction novels]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Ceuta]]
[[Category:Fiction about comets]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Novels about impact events]]
[[Category:Novels set in the 1880s]]
[[Category:Novels set in the 19th century]]
[[Category:Space exploration novels]]
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