Robur the Conqueror , also published as The Clipper of the Clouds , opens in Philadelphia at a meeting of the Weldon Institute, a club of balloon enthusiasts. A stranger named Robur asks to address the members, then tells them that the future belongs to heavier-than-air machines. He mocks the club’s giant balloon, the Go-Ahead , and insults its members until the meeting erupts in chaos. That night he kidnaps Uncle Prudent, the club’s president, Phil Evans, its secretary, and Frycollin, Prudent’s servant. He takes them captive aboard the Albatross , the flying machine he built, and flies them around the world to prove his point. After the captives escape, the story returns to Philadelphia for the first launch of the Go-Ahead , where the Albatross appears in the sky to challenge it.

First published in 1886 as Robur-le-Conquérant , this book marks the thirtieth entry in Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires . Its sequel, Master of the World , followed in 1904.