Jules Verne published "Around the World in Eighty Days" in 1872 as a serialized feuilleton in Le Temps, and readers immediately understood they were reading something new: a novel where the antagonist is time itself, and the globe is the playing board. Phileas Fogg is the most unlikely adventurer imaginable, a creature of clockwork habit who bets his fortune on the impossible precision of timetables, steamships, and sheer nerve. What readers chase in Verne is a very particular cocktail: the thrill of motion for its own sake, the comedy of the unflappable Englishman meeting chaotic reality at every port, and the underlying warmth of a story that is, at heart, about a man discovering what he has been missing by never leaving his armchair. That combination, wry wit plus relentless forward momentum plus a faith that the world is enormous and worth crossing, is what every work below shares.
Essential Verne
The novels that build the same sense of wonder at scale and velocity
Screen Adaptations and Kindred Films
From Hollywood spectacle to Bollywood homage, the best times the story has crossed into cinema
Series for the Armchair Traveller
Television that shares the globe-trotting energy and episodic discovery of Fogg's journey
Games for the Obsessive Planner
Games that reward the same systematic optimism Fogg applies to longitude and latitude
The 1956 film is the definitive adaptation, and it has never really been topped
Michael Anderson's Oscar-winning adaptation stars David Niven as a perfectly cast Fogg, dry and unshakeable, flanked by Cantinflas as a genuinely funny Passepartout. The film captures what most adaptations fumble: the comedy is in Fogg's refusal to be impressed by anything, not in broad pratfalls. The 2004 Jackie Chan version has charm, but it is a different film wearing the costume. The 2021 BBC series comes closest to the novel's pace and wit. Still, Niven remains the gold standard.
Inkle Studios' "80 Days" is the most intelligent game ever made about this book
Inkle's 2014 mobile game takes the premise and fills it with over 10,000 words of branching prose, making every route and transport choice feel consequential. It also quietly corrects the Victorian novel's blind spots, centering colonized peoples and giving them agency Verne never granted. Playing it alongside the novel is the ideal way to understand both what Verne achieved and what he could not see. It is the rare adaptation that has something to say to the original.
Around the World Through Time
- 1872Verne's novel published as a serial in Le Temps, Paris
- 1874First stage adaptation premieres in Paris, produced with Verne's involvement
- 1889Nellie Bly completes the real circumnavigation in 72 days, beating Fogg's fictional record
- 1956Michael Anderson's film wins five Academy Awards including Best Picture Around the World in 80 Days
- 1989Pierce Brosnan stars in a celebrated TV miniseries adaptation Around the World in 80 Days
- 2004Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan remake hits theatres to mixed reviews Around the World in 80 Days
- 2014Inkle Studios releases the text-adventure game, winning multiple BAFTA nominations 80 Days
- 2021BBC/France 2 miniseries with David Tennant brings the novel back to prestige television Around the World in 80 Days
The world is big enough for any wager, provided you have the nerve to start walking.Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days (1872)