Around the World in Eighty Days: Novel by Jules Verne

Around the World in Eighty Days, French Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, travel adventure novel by French author Jules Verne, published serially in 1872 in Le Temps and in book form in 1873. The work tells the story of the unflappable Phileas Fogg’s trip around the world, accompanied by his emotional valet, Passepartout, to win a bet. It was the most popular of Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires series of novels.

Phileas Fogg, a Londongentleman of meticulousand unchanging habits, hires as his valet Jean Passepartout, a Frenchman who has had a variety of jobs, including circusperformer, but now seeks a tranquil life. After reading in The Daily Telegraphthat a new railroad in India has made it theoretically possible to travel around the world in 80 days, Fogg bets his fellow members at the Reform Club that he will make that journey in 80 days or less; the wager is for the princely sum of £20,000 (half his fortune). Leaving that night, Fogg and a nonplussed Passepartout board a train bound for Dover and Calais to begin their journey.

Shortly before Fogg’s departure, someone resembling him had robbed a bank, and Fogg’s sudden exit leads Scotland Yardto believe that he was the bank robber. Accordingly, a detective, Mr. Fix, is sent to Suez, in British-ruled Egypt, to await the steamer Mongolia, on which Fogg and Passepartout are traveling. Fix befriends Passpartout, and, after learning that they will take the steamer to Bombay, he buys a ticket and joins them. The Mongoliareaches Bombay before the arrival of an arrest warrant, however. During the few hours before their planned departure for Calcutta on the Great India Peninsula Railway, Passepartout visits a Hindutemple on Malabar Hill, unaware that Christians are forbidden to enter and that shoes are not to be worn inside. He is beaten by enraged priests and barely makes it to the train station on time.