Round the world in Eighty Days, published in 1873, brought Jules Verne (1828-1905) to the height of his fame and prosperity, although his earlier successes, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, were no less popular. Mr Phileas Fogg, a gentleman of means of the most exact habits and unruffled temperament, lays a bet of $ 20, 000 at the Reform Club in London that he will make a trip round the world by steamship, railway train, and other modes of transport in not more than eighty days. So great is the excitement aroused by the bet that a New Security appears on the London Exchange. He sets out with this newly appointed French servant, Passepartout. In Suez, a detective attaches himself to the party in the belief that Mr. Fogg is the bank robber who had made away with $ 55, 000 from the Bank of England. Mr. Fogg’s itinerary takes hi through Suez, Bombay, Calcutta, Hong-Kong, yokihama, San Francisco, New York, and Liverpool with strange, exciting, and sometimes blood-curdling incidents en route. On the way from Bombay to Calcutta he rescues a beautiful woman from the suttee, his train runs at a tremendous speed across a crumbling bridge, Sioux Indians attack the train and kidnap the servant. Mr. Fogg is arrested twice, and he has to hijack a ship to cross the Atlantic in order to reach London on time. An yet, at the last moment, it seems that success has eluded him. A geographical error saves him, however, and not only does he win the bet but also the fair hand of the lady he rescued from the funeral pyre.
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