Around the World in Eighty Days

Undoubtedly one of the most celebrated tales of all time, this is both a high-octane thriller and fascinating travelogue. Phileas Fogg, intrepid Victorian gentleman-about-town, accepts a wager that he cannot travel around the world in eighty days. Naturally, he immediately sets off, accompanied by his French manservant Passepartout. They are pursued by a police officer, Detective Fix, who is foolishly convinced that Fogg is a bank robber. Much hilarity ensues. On the way, Fogg bravely rescues Aouda, a beautiful Indian princess, from a ceremony of ritual sacrifice. Unexpectedly, our thriller becomes a love story.

About the Author :
French author Jules Verne was born in the port of Nantes in 1828. He later moved to Paris to study law. At age twenty-eight, he married Honorine de Viane, a young widow with two children. Verne published several plays under the tutelage of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. He made his living as a stockbroker until his first successful series, Voyages Extraordinaire, was published in 1863. Soon Verne's novels became enormously popular around the world. Without a scientific background or experiences as a traveler, Verne spent much of his time doing research for his books. However, when the logic of the story contradicted scientific knowledge, Verne took poetic license with science to serve his fast-paced adventures. Verne's stories caught the spirit of the nineteenth century and its uncritical enthusiasm about scientific progress and invention. His works were often written in the form of a travel book taking the readers on fantastic voyages. Many of Verne's ideas have been hailed as prophetic, predicting some of the inventions that have changed our world, including the airplane, the submarine, and spacecraft. He published sixty-five novels, some twenty short stories and essays, thirty plays, an opera libretto and two geographical works. In the first part of his career Verne expressed optimism about progress and Europe's central role in the social and technical development of the world. In Verne's later novels, the author's pessimism is reflected in the doom-laden fin-de-siècle atmosphere. In contrast to the adventurous spirit of his novels, Verne's personal life was relatively uneventful, with the exception of his surviving a murder attempt by his insane nephew. Verne died of natural causes in Amiens on March 24, 1905. Bill Homewood is a television, voice actor, and an Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. He has regularly appeared on such shows as Coronation Street, The Adventure Game, and The Talisman.