Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne. 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 set by his friends at the Reform Club.
Mysterious Phileas Fogg is a cool customer. A man of the most repetitious and punctual habit - with no apparent sense of adventure whatsoever - he gambles his considerable fortune that he can complete a journey around the world in just 80 days... immediately after a newspaper calculates the feat as just barely possible.
With his excitable French manservant in tow, Fogg undertakes the exercise immediately, with no preparations, trusting that his traveling funds will make up for delays along the way. But unbeknownst to him, British police are desperately seeking to arrest him for the theft of a huge sum by someone who resembles him, and they will track him around the world, if necessary, to apprehend him.
This is an adventure novel of the first water, with wholly unexpected perils, hair-breadth escapes, brilliant solutions to insoluble problems, and even a love story. And can this be? - That he returns to London just five minutes too late to win his wager and retain his fortune?
Around the World in Eighty Days was first published in 1873. Translated by George Makepeace Towle. Audiobook read by Ralph Snelson, running time 5 hours, 47 min. Unabridged full version.
Jules Verne (1828 – 1905) was a French writer who pioneered the science fiction genre. Many of his novels involve elements of technology that were fantastic for the day but later became commonplace. Verne is the second most translated author in the world (following Agatha Christie), and his works appear in more translations per year than those of any other writer. Verne is one writer sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction".