Synopses & Reviews
Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne
On October 2, 1872, an English gentleman makes a remarkable wager: He can travel around the entire world in a mere eighty days. Thus begins Jules Vernes classic novel, which remains unsurpassed in sheer storytelling entertainment. Phileas Fogg and his faithful manservant, Passepartout, embark on a fantastic journey into a world filled with surprises, danger, and beautyfrom the shores of India, where the travelers rescue the beautiful wife of a rajah from ritual sacrifice, to the rugged American frontier, where their train is ambushed by an angry band of Sioux. With twenty thousand pounds at stake, Foggs mission is complicated by an incredible case of mistaken identity that sends a Scotland Yard detective in hot pursuit. A riveting race against time and an action-packed odyssey into the unknown, Around the World in Eighty Days is a masterpiece of adventure fiction that has captured the imaginations of generations of readers and continues to enthrall us today.
With an Introduction by Herbert Lottman and a New Afterword by Karen J. Renner
Synopsis
- With an afterword by Isaac Asimov
- With a new introduction by acclaimed journalist and science fiction author Bruce Sterling
- One of Jules Verne's most exciting novels--now repackaged
Synopsis
With little more than courage and ingenuity, five Union prisoners escaped the siege of Richmond-by hot-air balloon. They have no idea if they'll ever see civilization again-especially when they're swept off by a raging storm to the shores of an uncharted island.
About the Author
Jules Verne (18281905), born in Nantes, France, was the author of innumerable adventure stories that combined a vivid imagination with a gift for popularizing science. Although he had studied law in Paris, he devoted his life entirely to writing. His most popular stories in addition to
Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) include
A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864),
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and
The Mysterious Island (187475), all available in Signet Classics editions. In addition, he was the author of a number of successful plays, as well as a popular history of exploration from Phoenician times to the mid-nineteenth century,
The Discovery of the Earth (187880). After a long and active career in literature, Jules Verne died at Amiens, France.
Herbert Lottman, a longtime resident of France, was the correspondent for a number of American and British periodicals and literary magazines. Among his twenty-seven books are biographies of Jules Verne, Albert Camus, Colette, and Gustave Flaubert, as well as of The Left Bank: Writers, Artists and Politics from the Popular Front to the Cold War, The Purge (on postwar punishment of Nazi collaborators), and The Fall of Paris: June 1940, all published in both the United States and France.
Karen J. Renner teaches American literature and popular culture at Northern Arizona University. She has published essays on the apocalypse, the Antichrist, horror films, and reality ghost-hunting television shows. She is the editor of The Evil” Child in Literature, Film and Popular Culture, a collection of essays.