Chapter 1

Professor Lindenbrock was excited because he'd found a very old book, which was a first edition.

“Wonderful!” he cried, tapping his forehead. “Wonderful—wonderful!”
It was one of those yellow-leaved volumes now rarely found on stalls, and to me it appeared to possess but little value. My uncle, however, was in raptures.
He admired its binding, the clearness of its characters, the ease with which it opened in his hand, and repeated aloud, half a dozen times, that it was very, very old.
To my fancy he was making a great fuss about nothing, but it was not my province to say so. On the contrary, I professed considerable interest in the subject, and asked him what it was about.
“It is the Heims-Kringla of Snorre Tarleson,”he said, “the celebrated Icelandic author of the twelfth century—it is a true and correct account of the Norwegian princes who reigned in Iceland.”