Around the World in Eighty Days

Verne80Days1873FirstEdition — Front cover of the French first edition of *Around the World in Eighty Days*, published in January 1873.

Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is an adventure novel by the French author Jules Verne. It was first published in France in January 1873 and the first English translation appeared the same year.

The main characters in the novel are the wealthy and somewhat mysterious Englishman Phileas Fogg and his French manservant Jean Passepartout. Fogg bets twenty thousand pounds that he will be able to travel around the world and return to his starting point in exactly eighty days. The journey is initially uneventful but Fogg and Passepartout encounter and overcome several problems in India, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States and on the ocean. In India, Passepartout rescues Aouda, the widow of a raja, from being put to death as part of her late husband's funeral ceremony. Aouda then accompanies Fogg and Passepartout on the rest of their journey. Fogg is pursued from Egypt back to England by Inspector Fix, a Scotland Yard detective who wrongly believes that Fogg is a thief who robbed the Bank of England.

The novel has been adapted to other media numerous times. One of the best known and most highly regarded of those adaptations is the 1956 American film Around the World in 80 Days starring the British actor David Niven and the Mexican comedy movie star Cantinflas.

Plot[]

The novel begins on October 2, 1872. Jean Passepartout, a former Paris firefighter and stage acrobat who has traveled extensively, wishes to settle down to a quiet life and therefore is happy to take up a position at the London home of Phileas Fogg. Fogg is described as handsome, he is said to resemble Lord Byron, he is independently wealthy but nobody knows how he came by his fortune. Fogg follows the same routine every day, spending most of the day playing cards at the Reform Club, a private gentleman's club of which he is a member. Fogg also insists on precision in every aspect of his life. For example, he insists that his shaving water be exactly eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit and fired his previous servant for bringing him water which was two degrees too hot.

A large amount of money has been stolen from the Bank of England. The members of the Reform Club discuss the robbery and say that it will be difficult to catch the robber because the world is a very big place in which to hide. Fogg disagrees, saying that advances in transport have effectively made the world smaller. Pointing to an article in The Daily Telegraph about the completion of a railway connecting Bombay to Calcutta, he says that it has become possible to travel around the world in eighty days. When the other members of the Reform Club dismiss his claim, Fogg bets twenty thousand pounds that he can travel around the world in exactly eighty days and return to the Reform Club at precisely 8:45pm on Saturday December 21, 1872. The stamps in his passport are to serve as proof that he made the journey.

Fogg returns home and tells Passepartout to get ready to leave immediately. The two take only two shirts, three pairs of socks, one extra pair of shoes and two coats each and a large bag full of money. Their journey from London through France and Italy by train and on to Egypt by boat goes smoothly and is uneventful. On arrival in Egypt, Fogg is noticed by Inspector Fix, a detective who has been sent by Scotland Yard to search for the man who robbed the Bank of England. Fogg's appearance matches the description of the bank robber. Unable to stop Fogg in Egypt, Fix is forced to follow him to India.

In India, Fogg discovers that the story in The Daily Telegraph was incorrect, the railway from Bombay to Calcutta has not yet been completed and passengers have to find their own means to travel the fifty miles betweeen Kholby and Allahabad. Fogg buys an elephant and hires a local man to serve as a guide. Fogg, Passepartout and their guide see Aouda, the young widow of a raja, being taken unwillingly to her death on her late husband's funeral pyre. They decide to rescue her and follow the procession. Passepartout hides in the funeral pyre, rising up once the flames are lit. The attendants run away in fear, thinking that the raja has come back to life, and Passepartout carries Aouda away to safety. Aouda tells the travelers that she has relatives in Hong Kong and Fogg agrees to take her there.

In Calcutta, Fix arranges for Fogg and Passepartout to be arrested on the charge of Passepartout having entered a Hindu temple in Bombay without taking off his shoes. Passepartout and Fogg, considered responsible for his servant's conduct, both face the prospect of eight days in jail. However, Fogg pays two thousand pounds bail and he Passeprtout and Aouda promptly leave the country.

Arriving in Hong Kong, Aouda finds out that her relatives have moved to Holland. Fogg tells her that she can accompany him back to Europe. Inspector Fix approaches Passepartout and takes him to a bar. He tells the Frenchman that he is pursuing Fogg because he believes he is the man who robbed the Bank of England. Passepartout is offended by the suggestion and refuses to believe a word of it. Fix appears to apologize and goes on to get Passepartout drunk before offering him a pipe full of opium.

In spite of getting drunk and drugged, Passepartout is able to wake up in time the next morning to catch the steam boat to Yokohama, Japan. Fogg and Aouda, however, miss it. The owner of a small boat agrees to take them to Shanghai where they are able to catch another steam ship to Yokohama. On his own in Japan, Passepartout finds a job with a troupe of acrobats, directed by an American, who are soon to leave for the United States. On the night of his first performance in Yokohama, Passepartout sees Fogg and Aouda in the audience. he runs off the stage and rejoins them.

On board the steamship to San Francisco, Fix promises Passepartout that he will not try to hamper Fogg's journey around the world anymore. The reason for that being that he is keen for Fogg to get back to Britain quickly so that he can be arrested. Passepartout decides not to tell Fogg that Fix thinks he is a bank robber because he does not want to give Fogg something else to worry about. In San Francisco, Fogg, Passepartout, Aouda and Fix board a train for New York. After the train is attacked by Sioux warriors, they are frorced to travel across the snowy prairie by wind powered sledge. Arriving in Omaha, they are able to catch another train to New York.

Having arrived in New York too late to catch the steam ship to Liverpool, Fogg finds Andrew Speedy, the captain of a boat which is sailing to Bordeaux, France, who agrees to take the four passengers on board at a cost of two thousand dollars each. Fogg tries to persuade Speedy to take them to Liverpool. When he refuses, Fogg appears to agree to sail to Bordeaux. On board, Fogg leads the crew in a mutiny and they head in the direction of Liverpool. Having run out of fuel, Fogg buys the ship from Andrew Speedy so that he can burn everything on board that is made of wood.

Fogg and his companions arrive in Ireland and are able to get a boat to Liverpool. However, on arrival in Liverpool, Fix immediately arrests Fogg for the robbery of the Bank of England. Fix releases Fogg shortly afterwards, telling him that the real bank robber was caught three days earlier. Fogg, Passepartout and Aouda travel to London by train but arrive a few minutes too late for Fogg to win his bet.

The following day, Fogg tells Aouda that having lost his bet, and his entire fortune due to the expenses of his journey, he does not have the money to help her. Nevertheless, Aouda tells Fogg that she loves him and the two agree to marry the next day. Passepartout is sent to the nearest church to arrange a wedding for the following day. When Passepartout tells the vicar that his master wants to get married "tomorrow, Monday", the vicar replies that the following day is not Monday but Sunday, that day being Saturday December 21, 1872.

Passepartout rushes back to Fogg's house to tell him that he still has a few minutes to win his bet. Fogg realizes that he forgot that by traveling east around the world he gained a day when he crossed the International Date Line. He walks through the doors of the Reform Club at precisely 8:45pm on Saturday December 21, 1872. He has won his bet, regained his fortune and earned the love of Aouda too.

Adaptations[]

Other works of literature inspired by Around the World in Eighty Days include The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and Around the World in 100 Days. The Other Log of Phileas Fogg is a 1973 science fiction novel by the American author Philip José Farmer in which Phileas Fogg is secretly in contact with extraterrestrial beings and searches for a piece of stolen alien technology while on his trip around the world. Characters from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories also appear. Around the World in 100 Days is a 2010 children's novel by the American author Gary Blackwood in which Phileas Fogg's son attempts yo travel around the world by car.

The first stage adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days was written by Jules Verne himself in collaboration with the French playwright and novelist Adolphe d'Ennery. It was first performed in 1874.

A musical called Around the World in Eighty Days was performed at Niblo's Garden Theater in New York City in 1877.

The novel was later adapted as the musical Around the World, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Orson Welles. It was first performed at the Boston Opera House in Boston, Massachusetts on April 28, 1946. It was later staged at the Adelphi Theater on Broadway and ran for seventy-five performances between May 31 and August 3 1946. A heavily abbreviated version of the musical was broadcast on CBS radio in the United States on June 7, 1946 as an episode of Orson Welles' series The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air.

80 Days, another musical based on the novel with music by the British musician Ray Davies of The Kinks and book by the British playwright Snoo Wilson, was first performed at the Mandell Weiss Theater in San Diego, California from August 23 to October 9, 1988.

The first screen adaptation of the novel is the 1919 German silent film Around the World in Eighty Days (German: Die Reise um die Erde in 80 Tagen) which stars Conrad Veidt as Phileas Fogg.

The 1956 American comedy adventure film Around the World in Eighty Days stars the British actor David Niven as Phileas Fogg, the Mexican comedy star Mario Moreno, known as Cantinflas, as Passepartout, the American actress Shirley MacLaine as Aouda and the British actor Robert Newton as Inspector Fix. The film notably features cameo performances by more than forty international film stars, including Robert Morley, Noël Coward, Sir John Gielgud, John Mills, George Raft, Walter Fitzgerald, Fernandel, Charles Boyer, Cesar Romero, Buster Keaton, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lorre and Marlene Dietrich. The film was a critical and commercial success. Having been made on a budget of $6 million, it earned $42 million worldwide on its release. It won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

The feature length American comedy film The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze was released in 1963. It stars The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and "Curly Joe" DeRita) as the servants of Phileas Fogg III (jay Sheffield) who accompany him while he attempts to recreate his famous grandfather's journey around the world in eighty days.

The 2004 American action adventure comedy film Around the World in 80 Days stars the British actor and comedian Steve Coogan as Phileas Fogg and the Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan as Lau Xing, who takes on the alias Passepartout, pretends to be French and accepts a job as Fogg's servant in order to evade the police. The legendary martial artist Lau Xing takes a jade Buddha from the Bank of England with the intention of returning it to his village in China where it belongs. This draws down the ire of General Fang (played by Hong Kong actress and singer Karen Mok), a Chinese warlord and leader of the Black Scorpions. It is General Fang's henchmen, rather than the bungling police officer Fix (played by the British actor Ewen Bremner) who pose the greatest threat to the travelers. Fogg and his servant are joined on their travels by the aspiring French actress Monique LaRoche (played by the Belgian actress Cécile de France) who takes the place of the character Aouda from the novel. In common with the 1956 film, the 2004 one features several cameo performances by international celebrities, including John Cleese, Richard Branson, Macy Gray, Sammo Hung, Maggie Q, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kathy Bates. The film was made on a budget of $110 million and a further $30 million were spent on its marketing. It earned $72 million worldwide on its release, making it a box office flop.

A 40-minute animated feature film adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days in which the characters are anthropomorphic animals was made by Burbank Films of Australia in 1988.

The American animated feature film Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, released direct-to-video in 2000, is a loose adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days featuring characters from the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons.

Seventeen minutes of animation from 1938, known as An Indian Fantasy Story, is all that has been released of a planned animated feature film adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days. The film was to be co-produced by British and French studios. It was never completed.

Around the World in Eighty Days was adapted for British radio as a four-part series starring Leslie Phillips as Phileas Fogg, Yves Aubert as Passepartout and Jim Broadbent as Fix. The series first aired on the digital channel BBC Radio 7 (now known as BBC Radio 4 Extra) between February 25 and February 28, 2008.

The three-part live-action TV mini-series Around the World in 80 Days was co-produced by production companies from Italy, the United States, West Germany and Yugoslavia. It was first broadcast on the American network NBC for three consecutive nights starting on April 16, 1989. It stars Pierce Brosnan as Phileas Fogg, Eric Idle as Passepartout, Julia Nickson as Aouda and Peter Ustinov as Inspector Fix. Similarly to the 1956 film, the 1989 TV mini-series features cameo performances by several famous actors, including Patrick Macnee, Christopher Lee, Roddy McDowall and Jack Klugman. Two actors who make cameo appearances in the 1956 film, Robert Morley and John Mills, also do so in the 1989 mini-series. Several historical figures, who were alive in the late 19th century, appear as characters in the mini-series, including Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Pasteur, Jesse James, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Empress Dowager Cixi and Queen Victoria.

The 16-episode animated TV series Around the World in Eighty Days was made in Australia by Air Programs International. It became the first Australian cartoon series to be shown on American television when it started airing on NBC on September 9, 1972, the same date on which it began airing in Australia. It is a somewhat loose adaptation of Jules Verne's novel. The premise of the series is that Phileas Fogg is in love with a young woman named Belinda Maze. Her uncle, Lord Maze, disapproves of the relationship. He comes to an arrangement whereby he will allow Phileas Fogg to marry Belinda if he can travel around the world in eighty days. If Phileas Fogg fails, he will never see Belinda again. Lord Maze and Phileas Fogg also have a side bet of twenty thousand pounds. Mr. Fix is a saboteur hired by Lord Maze to stop Fogg's progress. Unlike in the novel, Fix is not a detective who wants to arrest Fogg, who is not suspected of any crime in the series. The series was intended to be educational. Each episode features information about the location that Fogg and Passepartout visit. Furthermore, each episode attempts to display the truth of a well-known proverb.

WillyFogUKDVD — Cover art or the British DVD release of the complete *Around the World with Willy Fog*.

Around the World in Eighty Days was adapted again as an animated TV series in the form of the 26-episode Spanish-Japanese co-production Around the World with Willy Fog (Spanish: La vuelta al mundo de Willy Fog, Japanese: アニメ80日間世界一周; Anime Hachijūnichikan Sekai Isshū). The series was co-produced by BRB Internacional and Nippon Animation. The first episode first aired on the channel Antenne 2 in France on August 1, 1983, on TVE 1 in Spain on January 8, 1984 and on TV Asahi in Japan on October 10, 1987. The series never achieved much popularity in the United States, although the American English dub became very popular in the United Kingdom, where it began airing on BBC1 on October 29, 1987. The adaptation is a a largely faithful one with all of the major plot points from Jules Verne's novel being covered. There are, however some notable changes. The most obvious of those changes is that all of the novel's human characters become anthropomorphic animals. Furthermore, all of the major characters names are changed. Phileas Fogg becomes the lion Willy Fog, Passepartout becomes the cat Rigodon, Aouda becomes the cat Romy and Inspector Fix becomes the dog Inspector Dix. Three prominent characters in the series do not have direct equivalents in Jules Verne's novel. Tico the hamster is Rigodn's friend from his circus days and his constant companion. He is Spanish in the original Spanish-language version of the series, although he is Italian in the English dub. He is small enough to fit inside Rigodon's bag, which allows Rigodon to keep Tico's existence a secret from Willy Fog for a while. Constable Bully the bulldog is Inspector Dix"s assistant. Transfer the wolf, a master of disguise, is hired by Willy Fog's rival at the Reform Club to sabotage Fog's journey. The presence of Transfer turns Fog into an entirely morally good character and makes Inspector Dix a more sympathetic character. Anything morally questionable that Phileas Fogg does in the novel is done by Willy Fog in the series only as a result of Transfer's trickery. Anything immoral that Inspector Fix does in the novel is done by Transfer, rather than by Inspector Dix, in the series. The characters also visit some locations that are not in Jules Verne's novel. For example, one episode takes pace in Hawaii and another takes place in Mexico.

A sequel to Around the World with Willy Fog, known simply as Willy Fog 2, was produced in 1993. It is primarily based on Jules Verne's novels Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

In October 2008, to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first broadcast of Around the World with Willy Fog in Spain, a live stage adaptation of it, Willy Fog: el musical, was produced. The musical was performed twice daily at the Teatro Häagen-Dazs Calderón in Madrid. Its run, which was intended to come to an end in December 2008, was extended until February 2009 due to its popularity. The production then toured Spain for the remainder of 2009.

The 2021 eight-part TV series Around the World in 80 Days is a French-German-Italian co-production. It stars Scottish actor David Tennant as Phileas Fogg, French actor Ibrahim Koma as Passepartout and German actress Leonie Benesch as Abigail Fix Fortescue, an aspiring journalist who follows Fogg on his journey and becomes his love interest. The first episode first aired on the channel France 2 in France on December 20, 2021, on ZDF in Germany on December 21, 2021, on BBC One in the United Kingdom on December 26, 2021 and on PBS in the United States on Januaey 2, 2022.

The seven-part British TV travel series Around the World in 80 Days was first shown on BBC1 between October 11 and November 22, 1989. It is presented by Michael Palin, an actor, writer and comedian who became famous as one of the performers on Monty Python's Flying Circus. For the travel series, Palin agreed to attempt a voyage around the world in eighty days without using air transport and following the route from Jules Verne's novel as closely as possible. He completed the journey in seventy-nine days and seven hours. Palin also wrote a non-fiction book called Around the World in 80 Days to accompany the series. Palin expresses his personal opinions somewhat more freely in the book than in the television version. The TV series was popular with the viewing public and critics alike. Two similar series followed. For Pole to Pole (1992), Michael Palin attempted to travel from the North Pole to the South Poe by land and sea. For Full Circle (1997), Palin visited several countries that have a coastline on the Pacific Ocean and attempted to travel in a circle back to his initial departure point in Alaska. Michael Palin later went on to host other travel documentaries with a narrower focus, namely Hemingway Adventure (1999), for which Palin visited several locations associated with the American writer Ernest Hemingway, Sahara (2002), Himalaya (2004), New Europe (2007), for which Palin visited twenty countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Brazil (2012) and Michael Palin in North Korea (2018). For the one-hour TV special Around the World in 20 Years, first shown on British television on December 30, 2008, Palin recreated the Dubai to Mumbai stage of the journey that he made for the 1989 series and met up with some of the same people he had met almost two decades earlier.

Another British TV travel series called Around the World in 80 Days was produced in 2009 as part of the BBC's annual Children in Need charity appeal. The six-part series first aired on BBC One and BBC HD between October 13 and November 17, 2009. It sees six pairs of celebrities (Frank Sinner and Lee Mack, Nick Hewer and Sara Khan, Julia Bradbury and Matt Baker, Bill Turnbull and Louise Minchin, Mylene Klaas and John Barrowman, Josie Lawrence and Shane Richie) each attempt to recreate one stage of the journey that Michael Palin had taken when he traveled around the world some twenty years earlier.

External links[]

Versions of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days in French and English on Wikisource.
Quotations from Around the World in Eighty Days on Wikiquote.
Free public domain audiobooks of Around the World in Eighty Days in French and English from LibriVox.
The itinerary from Around the World in Eighty Days on Wikivoyage.

Around the World in Eighty Days

Contents

Plot[]

Adaptations[]

See also[]

External links[]

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