Read this if you…
- are finishing the Verne top 3
- want verne without the science
- want a light fun short book
Skip this if you…
- want a serious read
- didn't like twenty thousand leagues under the sea
- aren't a nerd
Why It Matters
Verne invented the global adventure novel: a bet, a deadline, and a race around the world using every kind of transport going. The book caught the 19th century's faith in technology and progress and turned it into a story entertaining enough that it has never gone out of print. It is the prototype for every ticking-clock adventure story.
The 
Take
Great capstone of his 3 greatest. Just so much real info packed into the narrative, and it’s just always moving. You know he’s gonna make it, but it’s still great. Very easy to get invested, doesn’t feel like work, not that deep, but still good
Depicted in Art
Decorative red cartonnage cover of the Hetzel first illustrated edition, with elephant and globe motifs framing the title 'Le Tour du Monde en 80 jours.'
1873
Procession of the late rajah's guards, lit by torches, escorting the body to the funeral pyre in the Indian forest.
Alphonse de Neuville, 1873
A pack of wolves crosses the snowy prairie at dusk as the wind-sled tracks past — 'and sometimes a pack of prairie wolves.'
Léon Benett, 1873
Passepartout calmly facing a moment of danger en route — captioned in the original edition as 'Passepartout not at all frightened.'
Léon Benett, 1873
The drugged young widow Aouda, in white robes, led unresisting by attendants toward her husband's funeral pyre — 'this unfortunate woman appeared to make no resistance.'
Alphonse de Neuville, 1873
World map tracing the eastward route of Fogg's circumnavigation: London – Suez – Bombay – Calcutta – Hong Kong – Yokohama – San Francisco – New York – London.
Passepartout clinging awkwardly to the back of an Indian elephant as Fogg and the Parsi guide ride toward Allahabad across the unfinished railway.
Léon Benett, 1873
Recommended Editions
Michael Glencross
Penguin Classics · 2004
Glencross restores passages that earlier English versions quietly dropped, and his pace matches Verne's. The introduction sets the novel against the railway-and-steamship globalization that made the premise plausible in 1872.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“I will bet twenty thousand pounds against anyone who wishes that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less; in nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or a hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes.”
“Phileas Fogg had won his wager of twenty thousand pounds! Phileas Fogg had accomplished the journey round the world in eighty days!”
More by Jules Verne
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
1864 · Science Fiction
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
1870 · Science Fiction