His expansive 54-book Voyages extraordinaires (The Extraordinary Voyages) series is a testament to his extensive research. Jules Verne is widely regarded as one of the pillars of travel writing. Will Fogg and Passepartout succeed in their quest? Will Detective Fix stymie their progress? From London to Suez Canal, to India, to Japan, to the United States, the peripatetic narrative that takes the readers across the globe. As Detective Fix was unable to obtain a warrant of arrest in time, he was forced to go along with the journey, keeping a tab on the duo. Hot on the duo’s heels is Detective Fix, a Scotland Yard detective who was dispatched from London to capture a bank robber whose profile matched that of the reclusive Fogg’s. “He lived alone, and, so to speak, outside of every social relation and as he knew that in this world account must be taken of friction, and that friction retards, he never rubbed against anybody.” ~ Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days With careful calculation, the duo endeavors to complete the task on or before December 21. Fogg leads a life dictated by mathematical precision so at exactly 8:45 PM on October 2, he and Passepartout departed from London. Passepartout’s predecessor was dismissed for bringing Fogg a shaving water at 84 degrees Fahrenheit, two degrees lower than Fogg’s requirement. In exchange for successfully circumnavigating the world in 80 days, Fogg will receive £20,000 as a reward.Īccompanying Fogg in his adventure is his newly employed French valet, Jean Passepartout.
The story originates in London and begun when Fogg accepted the wager. Initially published in French in 1872, it is the eleventh book in Verne’s expansive and extensive Voyages extraordinaires (The Extraordinary Voyages) series. Phileas Fogg’s adventure was charted in French writer Jules Verne’s ever-popular work, Around the World in Eighty Days. The task is no easy feat – circumnavigating the world in eighty days. In living up to the spirit of this axiom, Phileas Fogg, the quintessence of an English gentleman, took up the challenge issued by Reform Club of London. It is a mantra that we repeatedly encounter in our quotidian lives. But the positive spirit ripples to other aspects of life as well. The uplifting roar of “you can do it, you can do it” reverberates through the halls of competitions. They were also racing through the very heart of the Victorian age.“ What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve,” goes the timeless adage. For Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland - two women ahead of their time in every sense of the wordwere not only racing around the world. Along the way, we are treated to fascinating glimpses of everyday life in the late nineteenth century - an era of unprecedented technological advances, newly remade in the image of the steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph. Here's the journey that takes us behind the walls of Jules Verne's Amiens estate, into the back alleys of Hong Kong, onto the grounds of a Ceylon tea plantation, through storm-tossed ocean crossings and mountains blocked by snowdrifts twenty feet deep, and to many more unexpected and exotic locales from London to Yokohama. Eighty Days brings these trailblazing women to life as they race against time and each other, unaided and alone, ever aware that the slightest delay could mean the difference between victory and defeat.Ī vivid real-life re-creation of the race and its aftermath, from its frenzied start to the nail-biting dash at its finish, Eighty Days is history with the heart of a great adventure novel. Both women, though, were talented writers who had carved out successful careers in the hypercompetitive, male-dominated world of big-city newspapers. Genteel and elegant, Elizabeth Bisland had been born into an aristocratic Southern family, preferred novels and poetry to newspapers, and was widely referred to as the most beautiful woman in metropolitan journalism. Nellie Bly was a scrappy, hard-driving, ambitious reporter from Pennsylvania coal country who sought out the most sensational news stories, often going undercover to expose social injustice. The dramatic race that ensued would span twenty-eight thousand miles, captivate the nation, and change both competitors' lives forever. Each woman was determined to outdo Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg and circle the globe in less than eighty days. Also departing from New York that dayand heading in the opposite direction by train - was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland. On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break the record for the fastest trip around the world.
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