Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days () 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 set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works. Plot. Phileas Fogg is a wealthy English gentleman living a solitary life in London. Despite his wealth, Fogg lives modestly and carries out his habits with mathematical  precision. Very little can be said about his social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club, where he spends the best part of his days. Having dismissed his valet for bringing him shaving water at a temperature slightly lower than expected, Fogg hires Frenchman Jean Passepartout as a replacement. On the evening of 2 October 1872, while at the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in "The Daily Telegraph" stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world  in 80 days. He accepts a wager for £20,000, half of his fortune, from his fellow club members to complete such a journey within this period. With Passepartout accompanying him, Fogg departs from London by train at 8:45 p.m. that evening; to win the wager, he must return to the club by this same time on 21 December, 80 days later. They take the remaining £20,000 of Fogg's fortune with them to cover expenses during the journey. Fogg and Passepartout reach Suez on time. While disembarking in Egypt, they are watched by a Scotland Yard policeman, Detective  Fix, dispatched from London in search of a bank robber. Since Fogg fits the vague description Scotland Yard was given of the robber, Detective Fix mistakes Fogg for the criminal. Since he cannot secure a warrant in time, Fix boards the steamer (the "Mongolia") conveying the travellers to Bombay. Fix becomes acquainted with Passepartout without revealing his purpose. Fogg promises the steamer engineer a large reward if he gets them to Bombay early. They dock two days ahead of schedule. After reaching India, they take a train from Bombay to Calcutta. Fogg learns that the "Daily Telegraph" article was  wrong; an stretch of track from Kholby to Allahabad has not yet been built. Fogg purchases an elephant, hires a guide and starts toward Allahabad. They come across a procession in which a young Indian woman, Aouda, is to undergo sati. Since she is drugged with opium and hashish and is obviously not going voluntarily, the travellers decide to rescue her. They follow the procession to the site, where Passepartout takes the place of Aouda's deceased husband on the funeral pyre. He rises from the pyre during the ceremony, scaring off the priests and carries Aouda away. The twelve  hours gained earlier are lost but Fogg shows no regret. The travellers hasten to catch the train at the next railway station, taking Aouda with them. At Calcutta, they board a steamer (the "Rangoon") going to Hong Kong, with a day's stopover in Singapore. Fix has Fogg and Passepartout arrested. They jump bail and Fix follows them to Hong Kong. He shows himself to Passepartout, who is delighted to again meet his travelling companion from the earlier voyage. In Hong Kong, it turns out that Aouda's distant relative, in whose care they had been planning to leave her , has moved to Holland, so they decide to take her with them to Europe. Still without a warrant, Fix sees Hong Kong as his last chance to arrest Fogg on British soil. Passepartout becomes convinced that Fix is a spy from the Reform Club. Fix confides in Passepartout, who does not believe a word and remains convinced that his master is not a bank robber. To prevent Passepartout from informing his master about the premature departure of their next vessel, the "Carnatic," Fix gets Passepartout drunk and drugs him in an opium den. Passepartout still manages to catch the steamer  to Yokohama but cannot inform Fogg that the steamer is leaving the evening before its scheduled departure date. Fogg discovers that he missed his connection. He searches for a vessel that will take him to Yokohama, finding a pilot boat, the "Tankadere", that takes him and Aouda to Shanghai, where they catch a steamer to Yokohama. In Yokohama, they search for Passepartout, believing he arrived there on the "Carnatic" as initially planned. They find him in a circus, trying to earn the fare for his homeward journey. Reunited, the four board a paddle-steamer, the "General Grant," taking them  across the Pacific to San Francisco. Fix promises Passepartout that now, having left British soil, he will no longer try to delay Fogg's journey but instead support him in getting back to Britain so he can arrest Fogg in Britain itself. In San Francisco, they board a transcontinental train to New York, encountering several obstacles along the way: a massive herd of bison crossing the tracks, a failing suspension bridge and a band of Sioux warriors ambushing the train. After uncoupling the locomotive from the carriages, Passepartout is kidnapped by the Indian warriors. Fogg rescues him after American soldiers  volunteer to help. They continue by a wind-powered sledge to Omaha, where they get a train to New York. In New York, having missed the ship "China", Fogg looks for alternative transport. He finds a steamboat, "Henrietta", destined for Bordeaux, France. The captain of the boat refuses to take the company to Liverpool, whereupon Fogg consents to be taken to Bordeaux for $2,000 (approximately $ in 2019) per passenger. He then bribes the crew to mutiny and make course for Liverpool. Against hurricane winds and going on full steam, the boat runs out of fuel after a few  days. Fogg buys the boat from the captain and has the crew burn all the wooden parts to keep up the steam. The companions arrive at Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, take the train to Dublin and then a ferry to Liverpool, still in time to reach London before the deadline. Once on English soil, Fix produces a warrant and arrests Fogg. A short time later, the misunderstanding is cleared up – the actual robber, an individual named James Strand, had been caught three days earlier in Edinburgh. Fogg has missed the train and arrives in London five minutes late, certain he has  lost the wager. The following day Fogg apologises to Aouda for bringing her with him since he now has to live in poverty and cannot support her. Aouda confesses that she loves him and asks him to marry her. As Passepartout notifies a minister, he learns that he is mistaken in the date – it is not 22 December, but instead 21 December. Because the party had travelled eastward, their days were shortened by four minutes for each of the 360 degrees of longitude they crossed; thus, although they had experienced the same amount of time abroad as people had  experienced in London, they had seen 80 sunrises and sunsets while London had seen only 79. Passepartout informs Fogg of his mistake and Fogg hurries to the Reform Club just in time to meet his deadline and win the wager. Having spent almost £19,000 of his travel money during the journey, he divides the remainder between Passepartout and Fix and marries Aouda. Background and analysis. "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 1869–70 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 linking of the Indian railways across the sub-continent (1870), and the opening of the Suez Canal (1869). 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. The closing date of the novel, 21 December 1872, was the same date as the serial publication. As it was being published serially for the first time, some readers believed that the journey was actually taking  place – bets were placed, and some railway companies and ship liner companies lobbied Verne to appear in the book. It is unknown if Verne submitted to their requests, but the descriptions of some rail and shipping lines leave some suspicion he was influenced. Concerning the final "coup de théâtre", Fogg had thought it was one day later than it actually was because he had forgotten that during his journey, he had added a full day to his clock, at the rate of an hour per 15° of longitude crossed. At the time of publication and until 1884, a "de  jure" International Date Line did not exist. If it did, he would have been made aware of the change in date once he reached this line. Thus, the day he added to his clock throughout his journey would be removed upon crossing this imaginary line. However, Fogg's mistake would not have been likely to occur in the real world because a "de facto" date line did exist. The UK, India, and the US had the same calendar with different local times. When he arrived in San Francisco, he would have noticed that the local date was one day earlier  than shown in his travel diary. Consequently, it is unlikely he would fail to notice that the departure dates of the transcontinental train in San Francisco and of the China steamer in New York were one day earlier than his travel diary. He would also somehow have to avoid looking at any newspapers. Additionally, in "Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet?", John Sutherland points out that Fogg and company would have to be "deaf, dumb and blind" not to notice how busy the streets were on an apparent "Sunday", with the Sunday Observance Act 1780 still in effect. Real-life imitations. Following  publication in 1873, various people attempted to follow Fogg's fictional circumnavigation, often within self-imposed constraints: Origins. The idea of a trip around the world within a set period had clear external origins. It was popular before Verne published his book in 1873. Even the title "Around the World in Eighty Days" is not original. Several sources have been hypothesized as the origins of the story. Another early reference comes from the Italian traveler Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri. He wrote a book in 1699 that was translated into French: Voyage around the World or "Voyage du Tour du Monde  (1719, Paris). Around the World by Steam, via Pacific Railway," was published in 1871 by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and an "Around the World in A Hundred and Twenty Days" by Edmond Planchut. In early 1870, the Erie Railway Company published a statement of routes, times, and distances detailing a trip around the globe of in seventy-seven days and twenty-one hours. American William Perry Fogg traveled the world, describing his tour in a series of letters to "The Cleveland Leader" newspaper, entitled, "Round the World: Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt" (1872). In 1872, Thomas Cook  organised the first around-the-world tourist trip, leaving on 20 September 1872 and returning seven months later. The journey was described in a series of letters published in 1873 as "Letter from the Sea and from Foreign Lands, Descriptive of a tour Round the World." Scholars have pointed out similarities between Verne's account and Cook's letters. However, some argue that Cook's trip happened too late to influence Verne. According to a second-hand 1898 account, Verne refers to a Cook advertisement as a source for the idea of his book. In interviews in 1894 and 1904 , Verne says the source was "through reading one day in a Paris cafe" and "due merely to a tourist advertisement seen by chance in the columns of a newspaper." "Around the World" itself says the origins were a newspaper article. All of these point to Cook's advert as being a probable spark for the idea of the book. The periodical "Le Tour du monde" (3 October 1869) contained a short piece titled "Around the World in Eighty Days", which refers to of the railway not yet completed between Allahabad and Bombay, a central point in Verne's work. But  even the "Le Tour de monde" article was not entirely original; it cites in its bibliography the "Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, de la Géographie, de l'Histoire et de l'Archéologie" (August 1869), which also contains the title "Around the World in Eighty Days" in its contents page. The "Nouvelles Annales" were written by Conrad Malte-Brun (1775–1826) and his son Victor Adolphe Malte-Brun (1816–1889). Scholars believe that Verne was aware of the "Le Tour de monde" article, the "Nouvelles Annales," or both and that he consulted it or them, noting that the "Le Tour du monde" even included a trip  schedule very similar to Verne's final version. A possible inspiration was the traveller George Francis Train, who made four trips around the world, including one in 80 days in 1870. Similarities include the hiring of a private train and being imprisoned. Train later claimed, "Verne stole my thunder. I'm Phileas Fogg." Regarding the idea of gaining a day, Verne said of its origin: "I have a great number of scientific odds and ends in my head. It was thus that, when, one day in a Paris café, I read in the "Siècle" that a man could travel around  the world in 80 days, it immediately struck me that I could profit by a difference of meridian and make my traveller gain or lose a day in his journey. There was a dénouement ready found. The story was not written until long after. I carry ideas about in my head for years – ten, or 15 years, sometimes – before giving them form." In his April 1873 lecture, "The Meridians and the Calendar", Verne responded to a question about where the change of day occurred since the international date line only became current in 1880 and the Greenwich prime meridian was  not adopted internationally until 1884. Verne cited an 1872 article in "Nature," and Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Three Sundays in a Week" (1841), which was also based on going around the world and the difference in a day linked to a marriage at the end. Verne even analysed Poe's story in his "Edgar Poe and His Works" (1864). Adaptations and influences. The book has been adapted or reimagined many times in different forms.