Around the World in Eighty Days

Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist from the Victorian era best known for his genre fiction. He attended university in France, where he obtained a degree in law while reading and writing prolifically for the theatre and magazines. Around the World in Eighty Days, published in 1872, is the best-known and final installment in a series of best-selling adventure books known as the Voyages Extraordinaires, or Extraordinary Voyages, series, which also includes Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).

Verne was also a well-known poet and playwright during his lifetime. Around the World in Eighty Days was adapted for stage and became very successful. To Verne’s dismay and disappointment, however, his popular success in the theater and the adaptation of his works into abridged collections for children gradually diminished his literary reception. He received a critical reception in France and most of Europe, building a reputation as an avant-garde and surrealist author. Outside of those areas, though, he was more often considered a popular children’s fiction author.

Vern frequented literary salons in France during the 1850s, writing several plays while also obtaining a law degree. He was heavily influenced by the grotesque realism of Victor Hugo, who also wrote during this period. This influence alongside Vern’s legal training led to a distinct style of realism with extreme attention to detail when describing settings and technological advancements from the period, a style for which his is still well known.

Through connections with the son of Alexander Dumas, the French adventure novelist, Verne met Pitre-Chevalier, the editor-in-chief of The Family Museum magazine. Thanks to this encounter, he began writing historical and geographical adventure stories, including A Voyage in a Balloon published in 1851. This serialized publication was the first of Vern’s works to later appear in book form. It is also the first example of the style of narrative for which the author became best known in the Anglosphere. These successes encouraged Vern to commit to writing as a career instead of focusing on law.

In 1862, Verne met Pierre-Jules Hetzel and secured a long-term position writing serialized work for the Magazine of Education and Recreation. The contract was for the completion of the Extraordinary Voyages, three serialized novels that would later be released as books, one of which was Around the World in Eighty Days. The descriptive chapter titles that head each chapter in Around the World in Eighty Days are because of this serialized format typical of literature written during the Victorian era.

Verne’s goal for the Extraordinary Voyages novels was to incorporate the sum of all physical and scientific knowledge, including the technological advancements of the period. In doing so, he wanted to apply a style that would highlight the ideal aesthetics and lyrical possibilities of writing, combining art and science into a model representation of humans and their place on Earth for intellectual readers. The author’s artistic idealism developed into his trademark style. His lofty, literary goal to invent a new aesthetic for writing was typical of Victorian authors, for whom literary legacy was an important consideration.