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Zusatztext “The reason Verne is still read by millions today is simply that he was one of the best storytellers who ever lived.” —Arthur C. Clarke Informationen zum Autor Jules Verne was born in France in 1828 and died in 1905. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel was wildly successful, producing many brilliant novels in the burgeoning genre of science fiction: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Around the World in 80 Days , among others. Verne is the second most translated author in the world, after Agatha Christie and before Shakespeare. Klappentext Jules Verne (1828-1905) was born in Nantes! France. His father wanted him to study Law! but Jules preferred theatre and writing. Known as the pioneer of science fiction! his best-known novels include Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). I In which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout accept each other, the one as master, the other as man Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron,—at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old. Certainly an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether Phileas Fogg was a Londoner. He was never seen on ’Change, nor at the Bank, nor in the counting-rooms of the “City”; no ships ever came into London docks of which he was the owner; he had no public employment; he had never been entered at any of the Inns of Court, either at the Temple, or Lincoln’s Inn, or Gray’s Inn; nor had his voice ever resounded in the Court of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the Queen’s Bench, or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer; nor was he a merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange to the scientific and learned societies, and he never was known to take part in the sage deliberations of the Royal Institution or the London Institution, the Artisan’s Association or the Institution of Arts and Sciences. He belonged, in fact, to none of the numerous societies which swarm in the English capital, from the Harmonic to that of the entomologists, founded mainly for the purpose of abolishing pernicious insects. Phileas Fogg was a member of the Reform; and that was all. The way in which he got admission to this exclusive club was simple enough. He was recommended by the Barings, with whom he had an open credit. His checks were regularly paid at sight from his account current, which was always flush. Was Phileas Fogg rich? Undoubtedly. But those who knew him best could not imagine how he had made his fortune, and Mr. Fogg was the last person to whom to apply for the information. He was not lavish, nor, on the contrary, avaricious; for whenever he knew that money was needed for a noble, useful, or benevolent purpose, he supplied it quietly, and sometimes anonymously. He was, in short, the least communicative of men. He talked very little, and seemed all the more mysterious for his taciturn manner. His daily habits were quite open to observation; but whatever he did was so exactly the same thing that he had always done before, that the wits of the curious were fairly puzzled. Had he travelled? It was likely, for no one seemed to know the world more familiarly; there was no spot so secluded that he did not appear to have an intimate acquaintance with it. He often corrected, with a few clear words, the thousand conjectures advanced by members of the club as to lost and unheard-of travellers, ...
