Jules Verne - Around the World in Eighty Days (Penguin Classics)

J ULES VERNE was born in 1828 in Nantes, then as now one of Frances most important ports. He developed from childhood a romantic fascination for the sea and ships. After a childhood and adolescence spent in his home town, Verne moved to Paris in 1848, ostensibly to complete his studies and become a lawyer like his father, but his real ambition was to be a writer. With this aim he frequented the Parisian literary salons of the period. Vernes early works were written for the stage, but during the 1850s he also wrote short stories that were published in one of the most successful illustrated magazines of the time.

Vernes career as a novelist began in 1863, when the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel accepted for publication the manuscript of what was to become an instant popular success, Five Weeks in a Balloon. All Vernes best-known and most successful works were published under his contract with Hetzel, who gave them the collective title of Extraordinary Journeys into the Known and Unknown Worlds. These works include Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1869) and Michael Strogoff (1876), as well as Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). Several of Vernes novels were also successfully adapted for the stage, including again Around the World in Eighty Days (1874).

From 1869 until his death Verne lived in the town of Amiens in Picardy, where he became increasingly active in local politics and administration as a moderate Republican. After Hetzels death in 1886 Verne continued to publish prolifically, working for Hetzels son. Novels from this period include The Carpathian Castle (1892) and Propeller Island (1895). After Vernes death in 1905 his son Michel edited and published a number of posthumous works, though recent scholarship has re-established the original versions of these texts. Verne continues to be one of the most popular and frequently translated of nineteenth-century French writers.

MICHAEL GLENCROSS was born in South Wales and educated there and at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he read modern languages. He is the author of a book (Reconstructing Camelot, 1995) and various articles in academic journals on nineteenth-century French literature and culture. He now lives in France, where he works as a translator.

BRIAN ALDISS has been writing for half a century. He is best known for his science fiction novels and stories, but has also written several novels on contemporary subjects, poetry and non-fiction. Aldiss was born in Norfolk in 1925. He soldiered in the Far East, chiefly Burma, Sumatra and Hong Kong, during and after the Second World War. In 2000 he was made Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction Writers of America and given an Honorary D.Litt. by the University of Reading. His history of science fiction, Billion Year Spree (1973), is generally considered to be the best and wittiest survey of the field.

JULES VERNE

Translated with Notes by MICHAEL GLENCROSS , with an Introduction by BRIAN ALDISS

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Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours first published in book form in 1873

This translation first published 2004

Translation, Notes and Chronology copyright Michael Glencross, 2004

Introduction copyright Brian Aldiss, 2004

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the translator and the author of the Introduction have been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

9780141910369

1828: Born on 8 February, first of five children, two boys and three girls. Father, Pierre Verne, followed family tradition of law. Mother, Sophie ne Allotte de la Fue, came from family of Nantes ship owners and merchants, of distant Scottish descent (Allott).

1829: Birth of brother, Paul, later to become naval officer, then stockbroker.

183346: Primary and secondary schooling in Nantes. Develops fascination for sea and ships. Falls in love with cousin Caroline Tronson. Obtains his baccalaurat. Begins law studies to please father.

1847: Goes to Paris to sit law exams. Engagement of cousin Caroline to another man.

1848: Settles in Paris. Continues to study law but main ambition to become writer. Introduced to literary salons by maternal uncle, relative of Chateaubriand. Friendship with the Dumases, father and son. Begins to write plays.

1849: Obtains law degree. Father allows him to stay on in Paris. Writes more plays.

1850: Publication and staging of one-act comedy Les Pailles rompues (Broken Straws). Beginning of friendship with musician Aristide Hignard, also from Nantes.

1851: Becomes secretary of Thtre-Lyrique. Publishes in illustrated family magazine Le Muse des Familles first short stories, Les Premiers navires de la Marine mexicaine (A Drama in Mexico) and Un Voyage en ballon (Drama in the Air).

1852: Refuses to take over family law practice in succession to father.

18525: Publishes further short stories in Le Muse des familles, including Martin Paz, Matre Zacharius (Master Zacharius), Un Hivernage dans les glaces (Winter in the Ice). Also continues to write for theatre in collaboration with Hignard.

1857: Marries young widow from Amiens with two children, Honorine de Viane. Becomes stockbroker.

1859: Visits England and Scotland with Hignard.

1861: Birth of only child, Michel.

1862: Meets publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel and offers him manuscript of Voyage en lair. Hetzel suggests alterations but agrees publication under title of Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon). Offers Verne first contract and takes him on as contributor to new childrens magazine Le Magasin dducation et de rcration.

1863: Publishes Cinq semaines en ballon. Immediate commercial success. Writes Paris au XXesicle (Paris in the Twentieth Century). Novel rejected by Hetzel and not published in France until 1994.

1864: Launch of Hetzels