Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne
Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne
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Around the World in 80 Days

Author: Jules Verne

Narrator: Orson Welles

Unabridged: 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HN Publishing

Published: 10/10/2019


Synopsis

As Welles mentions in his introduction, Howard Hughes's record-breaking round-the-world flight had taken place just months before and was no doubt still in the public mind. Hughes had not, however broken Phileas Fogg's record of 80. Welles makes an interesting, impatient Fogg, rushing to win his bet accompanied by his long-suffering manservant, whose name he resolutely refuses to pronounce correctly. Hermmann's music is electric, swirling around the performances as they swirl around the world. Welles himself made a TV series in the 1950s entitled Around the World, although he ventured no further than Spain, Italy and a bar in Paris. Days, completing the journey in 91 days. Jules Verne's initially unlovable hero uses all manner of methods to win his bet, and once again Welles gets swept up in the adventure of the whole thing.

About Jules Verne

French author Jules Verne was born in the port of Nantes in 1828. He later moved to Paris to study law. At age twenty-eight, he married Honorine de Viane, a young widow with two children. Verne published several plays under the tutelage of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. He made his living as a stockbroker until his first successful series, Voyages Extraordinaire, was published in 1863. Soon Verne's novels became enormously popular around the world. Without a scientific background or experiences as a traveler, Verne spent much of his time doing research for his books. However, when the logic of the story contradicted scientific knowledge, Verne took poetic license with science to serve his fast-paced adventures.

Verne's stories caught the spirit of the nineteenth century and its uncritical enthusiasm about scientific progress and invention. His works were often written in the form of a travel book taking the readers on fantastic voyages. Many of Verne's ideas have been hailed as prophetic, predicting some of the inventions that have changed our world, including the airplane, the submarine, and spacecraft. He published sixty-five novels, some twenty short stories and essays, thirty plays, an opera libretto and two geographical works.

In the first part of his career Verne expressed optimism about progress and Europe's central role in the social and technical development of the world. In Verne's later novels, the author's pessimism is reflected in the doom-laden fin-de-siècle atmosphere. In contrast to the adventurous spirit of his novels, Verne's personal life was relatively uneventful, with the exception of his surviving a murder attempt by his insane nephew. Verne died of natural causes in Amiens on March 24, 1905.


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