New Illustrated! Jules Gabriel Verne (1828 - 1905) was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. The story 'Around the World in Eighty Days' starts in London on October 2, 1872. A rich English gentleman and bachelor living in solitude at Number 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. He is a member of the Reform Club and gets involved in an argument over an article in The Morning Chronicle, stating that with the