Around the World in Eighty Days
A fast-moving adventure of travel, precision, and surprise in which discipline meets chance across a rapidly changing world.
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The book
Around the World in Eighty Days follows the precise and seemingly emotionless Phileas Fogg, who undertakes a wager to circumnavigate the globe within an astonishingly short time. Accompanied by the lively Passepartout, Fogg moves through a world shaped by steamships, railways, schedules, and imperial connections. Yet the journey is constantly disrupted by delay, misunderstanding, pursuit, and unexpected attachments. Jules Verne turns global travel into a narrative of suspense and transformation, showing how measured order collides with the unpredictability of lived experience. Beneath its brisk surface, the novel reflects on time, modern mobility, and the contrast between rigid habit and human spontaneity.
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Significance
This novel is one of Verne’s most accessible and enduring works, celebrated for its pace, charm, and inventive use of modern travel as narrative structure. It captures the nineteenth century’s fascination with speed, technology, and global interconnectedness while preserving a sense of play and unpredictability. Its continuing appeal lies in the balance between mechanical precision and emotional surprise: the world may be measured, but it cannot be fully controlled.
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Fragments from this book
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But five days after the article in the bulletin of the Geographical Society appeared, the demand began to subside: “Phileas Fogg” declined. They were offered by packages…
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Aouda fastened her great eyes, “clear as the sacred lakes of the Himalaya,” upon him; but the intractable Fogg, as reserved as ever, did not seem at all inclined to thro…
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Fogg observed that his watch was two hours too fast. Admitting that he was at this moment taking an express train, he could reach London and the Reform Club by a quarter…
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So, because you can go round it in three months—” “In eighty days,” interrupted Phileas Fogg. “Only eighty days, now that the section between Rothal and Allahabad, on th…
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This noble lord, who was fastened to his chair, would have given his fortune to be able to make the tour of the world, if it took ten years; and he bet five thousand pou…
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Half an hour later several members of the Reform came in and drew up to the fireplace, where a coal fire was steadily burning. Fogg’s usual partners at whist: Andrew Stu…
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The murmur soon became more distinct; it now seemed like a distant concert of human voices accompanied by brass instruments. The Parsee jumped to the ground, fastened th…
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They saw few or no churches, but the prophet’s mansion, the court-house, and the arsenal, blue-brick houses with verandas and porches, surrounded by gardens bordered wit…
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Allahabad was now only twelve miles to the north-east. They stopped under a clump of bananas, the fruit of which, as healthy as bread and as succulent as cream, was ampl…
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Passepartout noticed in the crowd a number of the natives who seemed very old and were dressed in yellow. On going into a barber’s to get shaved he learned that these an…
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“Is your honour looking for a boat?” “Have you a boat ready to sail?” “Yes, your honour; a pilot-boat—No. 43—the best in the harbour.” “Does she go fast?” “Between eight…
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Fogg!” cried she, clasping his hands and covering them with tears. Fogg, “if we do not lose a moment.” Phileas Fogg, by this resolution, inevitably sacrificed himself; h…