Around the World in 80 Days

by Jules Verne, Alco Beat (Editor)

Overview

Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (roughly £1.6 million today) set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works. The story starts in London on Tuesday, October 1, 1872. Fogg is a rich English gentleman living in solitude. Despite his wealth, Fogg lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about his social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club. Having dismissed his former valet, James Foster, for bringing him shaving water at 84 °F (29 °C) instead of 86 °F (30 °C), Fogg hires a Frenchman by the name of Jean Passepartout as a replacement. At the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. He accepts a wager for £20,000 (equal to about £1.6 million today) from his fellow club members, which he will receive if he makes it around the world in 80 days. Accompanied by Passepartout, he leaves London by train at 8:45 P.M. on Wednesday, October 2, 1872, and is due back at the Reform Club at the same time 80 days later, Saturday, December 21, 1872.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421850658
Publisher:	1st World Publishing
Publication date:	06/25/2013
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.66(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jules Verne was born in 1828 into a French lawyering family in the Atlantic coastal city of Nantes. Though his father sent him off to a Paris law school, young Jules had been writing on the side since his early teens, and his pet topics were the theater, travel, and science. Predictably enough, his legal studies led nowhere, so Verne took a day job with a stock brokerage, in his off-hours penning scripts for farces and musical comedies while also publishing short stories and novelettes of scientific exploration and adventure.

His big breakthrough came when he combined his theatrical knack with his scientific bent and in 1863 published an African adventure yarn, Five Weeks in a Balloon. After that and until his death in 1905, Jules Verne was one of the planet’s best-loved and best-selling novelists, publishing more than sixty books. Other imaginative favorites by him include The Mysterious Island, Hector Servadac, The Begum’s Millions, Master of the World, and The Meteor Hunt. Verne ranks among the five most translated authors in history, along with Mark Twain and the Bible.

Frederick Paul Walter is a scriptwriter, broadcaster, librarian, and amateur paleontologist. A long-standing member of the North American Jules Verne Society, he served as its vice president from 2000 to 2008. Walter has produced many media programs, articles, reviews, and papers on aspects of Jules Verne and has translated many Verne novels, including Amazing Journeys: Five Visionary Classics and The Sphinx of the Ice Realm, both also published by SUNY Press. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Date of Birth:

February 8, 1828

Date of Death:

March 24, 1905

Place of Birth:

Nantes, France

Place of Death:

Amiens, France

Education:

Nantes lycée and law studies in Paris

Table of Contents

Translator’s Preface

1. In which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout mutually accept each other as master and manservant

2. Where Passepartout is convinced he has found perfection at last

3. Where a conversation takes place that could cost Phileas Fogg a fortune

4. In which Phileas Fogg astounds his manservant Passepartout

5. In which a new share shows up on the London stock market

6. In which Fix the investigator is understandably impatient

7. Which demonstrates once again that passports are no help in police work

8. In which Passepartout says a bit more than maybe he ought to

9. Where the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean cooperate with Phileas Fogg’s objectives

10. Where Passpartout gets off easy with just the loss of his shoes

11. Where Phileas Fogg buys a fabulously expensive form of transportation

12. Where Phileas Fogg and his companions venture through the forests of India and what comes of it

13. In which Passepartout proves once again that luck and pluck are partners

14. In which Phileas Fogg goes down the whole wonderful valley of the Ganges without even thinking to look at it

15. Where the bag of banknotes gets lighter by another couple thousand pounds

16. Where Fix plays dumb when he hears certain things

17. Which deals with this and that during the crossing from Singapore and Hong Kong

18. In which Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, and Fix go about their separate business

19. Where Passepartout grows extremely concerned for his master and what comes of it

20. In which Fix makes direct contact with Phileas Fogg

21. Where the Tankadère’s skipper is in real danger of losing his £200 bonus

22. Where Passepartout finds that even halfway around the world, it’s wise to have a little money in your pocket

23. In which Passepartout’s nose gets outlandishly long

24. During which they cross the whole Pacific Ocean

25. Which gives a brief glimpse of San Francisco at election time

26. In which we ride an express train on the Pacific Railroad

27. During which Passepartout takes a course in Mormon history at a speed of twenty miles per hour

28. In which Passepartout can’t get anybody to use his head

29. Which will describe assorted incidents that are met with only on Union railroads

30. In which Phileas Fogg simply does what’s right

31. Where Insepctor Fix behaves in Phileas Fogg’s best interests

32. In which Phileas Fogg grapples with misfortune

33. In which Phileas Fogg rises to the occasion

34. Which gives Passepartout the chance to crack an outrageous but possibly original joke

35. In which Passepartout doesn’t ned to be told twice to do what his master says

36. Where shares in Phileas Fogg are back at a premium on the stock market

37. Which demonstrates that Phileas Fogg didn’t gain a thing by going around the world—other than happiness

Textual notes
Recommended Reading

Editorial Reviews

…Around the World in 80 Days is the entertainment gem in Verne’s output.” — SirReadaLot.org

From the Publisher

At the onset of the industrial age, Phileas Fogg makes a bet in his social circle that he will travel around the world in 80 days with the support of his personal confidante, Jean Passepartout. Using every means of transportation possible, his voyage is not without its obstacles. While on his adventure, he encounters the sly Detective Fix, posing as a fellow traveler who issues a warrant to against Fogg for presumably robbing a bank. Together with Jean, Fix and later Aouda, he rents an elephant, camps out in the Indian jungle, saves Aouda, who is a widow, from a sacrificial ceremony, rides a sailboat on the snowy Great Plains, and fuels the ship’s furnace with its own wood. Without further ado, Fogg and his fellow travelers safely arrive on British Soil aboard a stripped vessel, which was once their ship. Detective Fix loses the game, leaving Fogg to win his bet and a love interest. A graphic journey about one industrious and skilled man’s attempt to cross borders, only to achieve the impossible and find a treasure of love, which money cannot buy. Reviewer: Sarah Abdulrazak; Ages 12 up.

Children's Literature - Daniela Gassmann