Title

First published in French in 1872

Adventure novel

Author

Gutenberg EBook

As originally planned

The story starts in London on Wednesday, 2 October 1872.

Phileas Fogg is a rich British gentleman living in solitude. Despite his wealth, Fogg lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about his social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club, where he spends much of every day.

After reading in The Daily Telegraph that a new railroad in India has made it theoretically possible to travel around the world in 80 days, Fogg bets his fellow members at the Reform Club that he will make that journey in 80 days or less; the wager is for the princely sum of £20,000 (half his fortune).

Leaving that night, Fogg and a Frenchman Jean Passepartout board a train bound for Dover and Calais to begin their journey.

Shortly before Fogg’s departure, someone resembling him had robbed a bank, and Fogg’s sudden exit leads Scotland Yard to believe that he was the bank robber.

Accordingly, a detective, Mr. Fix, is sent to Suez, in British-ruled Egypt, to await the steamer Mongolia, on which Fogg and Passepartout are traveling. Fix befriends Passpartout, and, after learning that they will take the steamer to Bombay, he buys a ticket and joins them.

The Mongolia reaches Bombay before the arrival of an arrest warrant, however. During the few hours before their planned departure for Calcutta on the Great India Peninsula Railway, Passepartout visits a Hindu temple on Malabar Hill, unaware that Christians are forbidden to enter and that shoes are not to be worn inside. He is beaten by enraged priests and barely makes it to the train station on time.

The train travels through India until stopping at the village of Kholby, where Fogg learns that, contrary to what was reported in the British press, the railroad is 50 miles (81 km) short of completion, and passengers are required to find their own way to Allahabad to resume the train trip.

Fogg purchases an elephant and hires a Parsi man as elephant driver and guide. The elephant-borne party later encounters a group of people preparing for an act of suttee—the immolation of a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre.

Fogg decides that they must rescue the young widow. Passepartout disguises himself as the body of the late rajah, and, as soon as the pyre is lit, he springs up and seizes the widow. The party then flees before the ruse is discovered. They reach the railroad station in Allahabad and continue on their journey.

In Calcutta, however, Fogg and Passepartout are arrested and sentenced to prison because of Passepartout’s incursion into the Malabar Hill temple in Bombay. An unperturbed Fogg pays bail for them, and, accompanied by the widow, Aouda, they board a steamer bound for Hong Kong. Fix, who had hoped the sentences would keep them in Calcutta long enough for the warrant to arrive, joins them.

In Hong Kong Passepartout attempts to secure cabins on a boat to Yokohama and learns that its departure has been rescheduled for that evening. Desperate to keep Fogg in Hong Kong until the warrant arrives, Fix tells Passepartout why he is following Fogg and offers to pay him to help delay Fogg’s departure.

When Passepartout refuses, Fix drugs him with opium, preventing him from returning to Fogg. As a result, Fogg misses the steamer. However, he finds another ship that will take them to Shanghai, and he, Aouda, and Fix set sail. In the meantime, Passepartout manages to stagger onto the ship for Yokohama.

Passepartout arrives in Yokohama with no money and no idea where Fogg is. He joins a traveling circus, where Fogg, having caught a Yokohama-bound steamer from Shanghai, encounters him just in time for them all (including Fix) to board the steamer that will take them to San Francisco.

As Britain has no jurisdiction in the United States, Fix is now as eager as the rest of them to get Fogg back to England quickly. The group boards a train bound for New York City.

The train trip continues more or less uneventfully until it reaches Medicine Bow, Wyoming Territory, where a signalman tells them that the suspension bridge is too dilapidated to bear the weight of a train.

However, the engineer believes that it might be possible to safely cross the bridge by going at top speed, and the plan works, with the bridge collapsing as soon as the train reaches the other side.

In Nebraska the train is attacked by a band of Sioux, who are on the point of winning the battle when Passepartout succeeds in uncoupling the train from its engine outside Fort Kearny, and the soldiers garrisoned there frighten the Sioux into leaving.

However, the Sioux capture Passepartout and two other passengers. Fogg rides to their rescue with a group of soldiers, but the recoupled train departs without them.

Using a sail-powered sledge, Fogg and the others travel over snow to Omaha, Nebraska, arriving just in time to board a train to Chicago. From there they catch a train to New York City, where they arrive 45 minutes after departure of the ship to England.

Fogg finds an empty trading ship whose captain is willing to carry the group of four to Bordeaux, France. After bribing the crew and imprisoning the captain, Fogg assumes control and sets course for Liverpool, England. When a storm prevents the use of sails, the coal supply runs low.

Fogg buys the ship from the captain and begins burning its wooden parts. As soon as they arrive in Liverpool, Fix arrests Fogg. Several hours later, though, Fix learns that another man was responsible for the bank robbery, and he releases Fogg, who orders a special train. However, he arrives in London five minutes too late to win his wager.

The following evening Fogg apologizes to Aouda for being unable to provide for her comfort as a result of losing the bet. She in turn proposes marriage to him, and he joyfully agrees. Passepartout is sent to engage a clergyman, and he learns that their journey through the time zones had gained them a day and that they are not too late after all. He rushes back to notify Fogg, who arrives at the Reform Club with only moments to spare.

In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club.