‘The Blockade Runners’ is a 1865 short story by French novelist Jules Verne. Set during the American Civil War, the story follows James Playfair, a British merchant captain who seeks to break the Union blockade of Charleston harbor, South Carolina in order trade for cotton. Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, playwright, and poet, generally considered a major literary figure in Europe. ‘The Father of Science fiction’, he is perhaps most famous for his books ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ (1864), ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ (1870), and ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ (1873). He is the second most-translated author in the world after William Shakespeare. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.