First serialized in a French newspaper in 1872, this is perhaps the most beloved and the most enduring of Jules Verne s novels of imaginative escapades. When Englishman Phileas Fogg takes on a bet of 20,000 from his gentlemen s club that he cannot circumnavigate the globe in 80 days or less an unheard-of feat in the Victorian world he sets off, with his manservant Passepartout at his side, on an series of exotic exploits and comic misadventures (Fogg is mistaken for a thief on the run by a pursuing Scotland Yard detective). An inspiration to generations of writers and readers, Verne s fiction remains compelling and thoroughly enjoyable today. French author JULES GABRIEL VERNE (1828 1905) is considered the father of modern science fiction. Among his many groundbreaking books are Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870)