About This Book

Phineas Fogg, conspicuously short of funds, makes a wager: £20,000 against his ability to travel around the world in only 80 days. "Try the Concorde," you say? Sorry — not for another 100 years!

So off he goes, he and his valet, Parrepartout, over continents, oceans, and Alps, across the subcontinent of India (yes, picking up a pretty girl along the way: Jules Verne was a Frenchman!). They speed through China, span the Pacific, and head across the U.S. landmass by train, days flashing past, flashing past. A ship across the Atlantic. Will they make it? Will they not? They arrive in London. What day is it? Not Quite? Almost? (Where will he get those £20,000 if he fails!)

And then . . . read the book to see what reward our hero receives for his efforts. If any!

About Jules Verne

(1828-1905) Born in Nantes, France, Verne's first training was as a lawyer, but he soon turned to adventure writing. His first success was Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon), and thereafter, he produced a long series of marvelous tales at the rate of approximately one a year for the next 25 years. His most successful books include Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in 80 days.

Before any writing was ever labeled "science fiction," there were flights of imagination — what the author himself called voyages imaginaires — that anticipated a thrilling future, based on scientific marvels yet to come. Jules Verne was a writer of such stories.