AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS
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Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in French in 1872. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a wager of £20,000 (equivalent to £2.3 million in 2023) set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works.
The novel was translated by George Makepeace Towle (August 27, 1841 – August 9, 1893) and first published in English in 1873 by James R. Osgood and Co. – Boston.
Around the World in Eighty Days was written during difficult times, both for France and Verne. It was during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) in which Verne was conscripted as a coastguard; he was having financial difficulties (his previous works were not paid royalties); his father had died recently; and he had witnessed a public execution, which had disturbed him.
The technological innovations of the 19th century had opened the possibility of rapid circumnavigation, and the prospect fascinated Verne and his readership. In particular, three technological breakthroughs occurred in 1869–1870 that made a tourist-like around-the-world journey possible for the first time: the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in America (1869), the opening of the Suez Canal (1869), and the linking of the Indian railways across the sub-continent (1870). It was another notable mark at the end of an age of exploration and the start of an age of fully global tourism that could be enjoyed in relative comfort and safety. It sparked the imagination that anyone could sit down, draw up a schedule, buy tickets and travel around the world, a feat previously reserved for only the most heroic and hardy of adventurers. and hardy of adventurers.
The novel has been adapted for stage, screen, radio, and video games. It has spawned real life imitators (Nelly Bly) and related novels.
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS
$11.25