Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

This conversation eventually leads to Stuart betting £4,000 that it is impossible for a man to go around the world in eighty days. The men get into a discussion about a recent robbery at the Bank of England by a “well-to-do” gentleman and theorize about whether or not he will be able to evade authorities by leaving the country. That evening, Fogg plays whist with his usual partners at the Reform Club: Andrew Stuart, Gauthier Ralph, John Sullivan, Samuel Fallentin, and Thomas Flanagan. Passepartout is a Parisian man who once led an adventurous life as a vagrant and performer, and now longs for the same calm, routinized life that Fogg leads. On October 2nd, 1872, Fogg hires a new servant named Jean Passepartout. Due to Fogg’s reclusive, solitary nature, no one knows much about him despite his public reputation of being knowledgeable, worldly, and gentlemanly. He spends every day at the exclusive Reform Club social organization, where he dines extravagantly, reads newspapers, and bets on games of whist with his similarly wealthy acquaintances. Fogg is an extremely wealthy man with eccentric habits-he has no family or close relationships yet is extremely generous with strangers, and he abides by a strict, repetitive schedule that he keeps track of on an intricate clock in his mansion. Around the World in Eighty Days tells the story of Phileas Fogg, an Englishman living in the Victorian Era who bets £20,000 that he can circle the globe in exactly eighty days.

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne