With an Introduction & Notes by Professor Roger Cardinal University of Kent at Canterbury Translationsare by Paul Desages (Around the World in Eighty Days) & Arthur Chambers (Five Weeks in a Balloon) JULES VERNE (1828-1905) POSSESSED that rare storyteller's gift of being able to present the far-fetched & the downright unbelievable in such a way as effortlessly to inspire his reader's allegiance & trust This volume contains two of his best-loved yarns chosen from among the sixty-four titles of Les Voyages Extraordinaires Verne's pioneering contribution to the canon of modern science fiction Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) relates the hair-raising journey made as a wager by the Victorian gentleman Phileas Fogg who succeeds
- but only just!
- in circling the globe within eighty days The dour Fogg's obsession with his timetable is complemented by the dynamism & versatility of his French manservant Passepartout whose talent for getting into scrapes brings colour & suspense to the race against time Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) was Verne's first novel It documents an apocryphal jaunt across the continent of Africa in a hydrogen balloon designed by the omniscient imperturbable & ever capable Dr Fergusson the prototype of the Vernian adventurer