This book was published in 1872. Transpacific and transatlantic steamships had come into to being, but many still used paddle wheels and supplemented steam power with wind power. The Transcontinental Railroad, a 6 year project, had just been completed in the United States in 1869. What had been a many months journey from coast to coast of the United States had been transformed into a journey of a week. The concept of being able to go around the world quickly was just being realized. Verne took this new excitement and created the novel we know as Around the World in 80 Days.
Like many of Verne’s novels the bench of characters is not deep. Nor is there a great deal of character development. They remain throughout the book relatively unchanged.
The protagonist, if you will, of this book is Phileas Fogg, a wealthy man whose wealth was acquired by means unknown. To call this man regular of habit and punctual is to call the sky blue. Phileas Fog brings a whole new dimension to wonderful, wacky world of obsessive compulsive disorders. He does the same thing at the same time day after day. He is reserved, has no real friends, and apparently only reads the newspaper. His primary diversion is whist which he plays regularly, but without passion. Verne, a Frenchman, seems to admire the phlegmatic man. The Icelandic guide in Journey to the Center of the Earth had as flat an affect as could be imagined. Capt. Nemo had his moments of rage and depression, but in between tended to be taciturn and placid.
In a momentary burst of emotion, Phileas Fogg bets his whist partners that he can travel around the world in 80 days. He bets £20,000 (approximately $2,000,000 in today’s dollars) that he can accomplish the trip in the allocated time. 5 well to do men form a coalition to come up with the money to bet against him. Being a man to waste no time, he begins his journey that very night, much to the chagrin of his valet. Of course the news of this bet and this journey leaks out of the club and it becomes all the rage in England. Remarkably, at the commencement of this journey Phileas Fogg puts £20,000 in a carpetbag that his valet carries for him. Phileas Fogg is convinced that he as foreseen all contingencies and those that he has not can be ironed out with British pounds.
His valet, Passepartout, is a Frenchman, and this is his very first day of employment with Phileas Fogg. He was seeking a quite employer, and he believed he had found one in this predictable gentleman. Passepartout is both a blessing and hindrance to his master during the journey. He had a few escapades that cause delays, and could have potentially ruined the trip and his master. He also on more than one occasion manages to get the proverbial chestnuts out of the fire. He is also the comic relief of the novelist.
The tension building agent of Verne’s novel is Detective Fix. There had been a bold robbery of £55,000 at the Bank of England just a few days before the beginning of the Fogg’s journey. The robber’s description was sent around the British world. Detective Fix sees Fogg in at a port on the Suez Canal, and becomes convinced he is the bank robber. Without a warrant he cannot arrest Phileas Fogg and thus he begins a journey chasing Phileas Fogg around the world and the warrant chasing Detective Fix. Fix does all he can to delay Fogg’s journey so the warrant has time to catch up with him and he can arrest Fogg before he leaves British territory.
The only other character of note is Aouda, a Parsee woman of immense beauty. Fogg, Passepartout and a Parsee guide rescue this woman from being burned on the funeral pyre of her departed husband. Since she cannot stay in India and be safe Phileas Fogg takes her with him. The hope is to leave her with relatives in Hong Kong.
So there you have it, a party of four aiding and hindering Phileas Fogg in his rapid journey around the globe. During the trip he crosses Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Indian Ocean. He passes through India on train and elephant, spreading money along the way. From India it is on to Hong Kong, and then on to Japan. From Japan he sails to San Francisco and takes trains and other conveyances across the continent to New York. Missing his original ship at New York, he improvises and manages to cross the Atlantic in time. Arriving in Liverpool, Detective Fix has one more card to play.
In many ways this is a book about duty. Fogg’s sense of duty leads him to organize the rescue of Aouda. Passepartout feels a sense of duty as well as loyalty to his employer. Detective Fix has an exaggerated sense duty that impels him around the world to arrest Fogg. Aouda fells a sense of debt and duty towards the man who rescued her from death. Fogg in the end will pay his gambling debt and ruin himself from a sense of duty and correctness.
This was not a great book, but it is immensely readable and very entertaining. You do need to consider the times in which it was written though. This is another Verne novel that has inspired several other projects.
A 2004 movie starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan. I have not seen the movie, but from the blurb on IMDB it sounds like it departs from the original text considerably.
A 1956 movie starring David Niven
A 1989 TV mini-series starring Pierce Brosnan
Also Nellie Bly, the American female journalist, recreated the trip and wrote a book about her trip, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days
This book is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free.
Audio book from LibriVox.org : Around the World in Eighty Days
e-Book from Gutenberg.org: Around the World in Eighty Days