Jules Verne

Étienne Carjat / Public domain
c1884 photograph from
the Paris Artiste

Jules Verne (1828-1905) didn't invent science fiction (that would be Mary Shelley), but he was one of the major codifiers of it who helped turn it into a full-on genre. He is arguably the inventor of hard science fiction, though, as he always made a point of explaining the fantastical events in his Voyages extraordinaires in as realistic a way as he could with the science of the time. While he has long been considered a major literary figure in his native France, the English-speaking world was originally saddled with some not-great abridged translations that relegated him to the "kiddie/genre" ghetto in the minds of many scholars. Despite this, his influence and reach has been incalculable, standing firm as the second-most-translated author of all time, well behind Agatha Christie and just ahead of Shakespeare.


Around the World in Eighty Days
In which overly reserved Englishman Phileas Fogg and his new French servant Passepartout undertake the titular journey on a bet, while being pursued by Detective Fix, convinced that Fogg is a notorious bank robber. It does not contain any hot-air balloons.

Notes and Illustrations

• Chapters One to Three
• Chapters Four to Eight
• Chapters Nine to Eleven
• Chapters Twelve to Fourteen
• Chapters Fifteen to Seventeen
• Chapters Eighteen to Twenty
• Chapters Twenty-One and Twenty-Two
• Chapters Twenty-Three to Twenty-Five
• Chapters Twenty-Six to Twenty-Eight
• Chapters Twenty-Nine and Thirty
• Chapters Thirty-One to Thirty-Three
• Chapters Thirty-Four to Thirty-Seven