Around the World in Eighty Days (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) »

A legendary French author and pioneer of the science fiction genre, Jules Verne wrote visionary tales of space, air, and underwater adventure in classics like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

Around the World in Eighty Days, published originally as a newspaper serial in 1872 and released as a book the following year was well received in both formats. Its hero, Phileas Fogg, is a leisured but taciturn Londoner of such mathematically precise habits that he has fired his servant for bringing him shaving water two degrees too cold. Over a game of cards, Fogg wagers twenty thousand pounds that he can travel around the world in eighty days or less. What follows is a headlong adventure full of trains, ships, elephants, and wind sledges, not to mention human sacrifice, duels, and Indian attacks. A successful combination of modern speed and period quaintness, Around the World in Eighty Days has become a delightful, timeless, steam-driven classic.