福格和改良俱乐部的成员打赌可以在八十天里环游地球一周。于是他便带着绰号叫“万事通”的仆人启程从伦敦出发，开始了不可思议的环球旅行。他一路上遭人跟踪、舍身救人、与恶僧对簿公堂、遭暗算误了轮船、遇风浪海上搏击、与仆人失散、勇斗劫匪、救仆人身赴险境、燃料告急海上经受考验、疑为窃贼海关被囚……几乎所有的困难和意外都被福格不幸遇到了；然而他总能一次次神奇地化险为夷，*终打赌成功。
IN the year 1872, No. 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens— the house where Sheridan died in 1814—was occupied by Phileas Fogg,Esq. This gentleman was one of the most remarkable, and indeed most remarked upon, members of the Reform Club, although he seemed to go out of his way to do nothing that might attract any attention.
One of the greatest public speakers to honour his country had thus been replaced by the aforesaid Phileas Fogg. The latter was an enigmatic figure about whom nothing was known, except that he was a thorough gentleman and one of the most handsome figures in the whole of high society.
He was said to look like Byron: his head at least, for his feet were beyond reproach—but a mustachioed and bewhiskered Byron, an impassive Byron, one who might have lived for a thousand years without ever growing old.
Although clearly British, Mr Fogg might not have been a Londoner. He had never been spotted in the Stock Exchange, the Bank, or the City. The basins and docks of London had never berthed a ship for an owner called Phileas Fogg. This gentleman was not on any board of directors. His name had never rung out in a barristers' chambers, whether at the Temple, Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn. He had never pleaded in the Courts of Chancery, Queen's Bench, or Exchequer, nor in an Ecclesiastical Court. He was not engaged in industry, business, commerce, or agriculture. He did not belong to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the London Institution, the Artizan Society, the Russell Institution, the Western Literary Institution, the Law Society, nor even that Society for the Combined Arts and Sciences which enjoys the direct patronage of Her Gracious Majesty. In sum, he was not a member of any of the associations that breed so prolifically in the capital of theUnited Kingdom, from the Harmonic Union to the Entomological Society, founded chiefly with the aim of exterminating harmful insects.
Phileas Fogg belonged to the Reform Club—and that was all.
Should anyone express surprise that such a mysterious gentleman be numbered amongst the members of that distinguished society, it can be pointed out here that he was accepted on the recommendation of Messrs Baring Brothers, with whom he had an unlimited overdraft facility. Hence a certain 'profile', for his cheques were always paid on sight and his account remained invariably in the black.
Was this Phileas Fogg well off? Without any doubt. But how he had made his fortune, even the best informed could not say. And Mr Fogg was the last person one would have approached to find out. In any case, while in no way extravagant, he was not tight-fisted either. Whenever support was needed for some noble, useful, or generous cause, he would provide it, noiselessly and even anonymously.
In short, the least communicative of men. He spoke as little as possible, and so seemed all the more difficult to fathom. His life was transparent, but what he did was always so mathematically the same, that one's imagination, disturbed, tried to look beyond.
Had he travelled? Probably, because no one possessed the map of the world as he did. Nowhere was so remote that he didn't seem to have some inside knowledge of it. Sometimes he would rectify, briefly and clearly, the thousand ideas about temporarily or permanently lost travellers that spread through the clubs. He would demonstrate the most likely outcome; and he had seemed gifted with second sight, so often had the facts in the end borne out what he had said. He was a man who must have been everywhere-in his imagination at the very least.
What seemed certain, all the same, was that Mr Fogg had not been away from London for some years. Those who had the honour of knowing him a little better than most attested that, apart from the shortest route he took each day from his house to the Club, nobody could claim ever to have seen him anywhere else. His only pastimes were reading the newspapers and playing whist. It fitted his nature entirely that he often won at this silent game. His winnings, however, never stayed in his wallet, but formed instead a major part of his contributions to charity. In any case it should be pointed out that Mr Fogg clearly played for playing's sake, not so as to win. Whist was for him a challenge, a struggle against a difficulty, but one that required no action, no travel, and no fatigue—and so perfectly suited his character.
Introduction
Note on the Text and Translation
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Jules Verne
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS
Appendix A. Principal Sources
Appendix B. The Play
Appendix C. 'Around the World' as Seen by the Critics
Explanatory Notes
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凡尔纳的小说启发了我的思想，给了我幻想的方向。
——俄国宇航之父齐奥尔斯基
凡尔纳先生的小说是当今*畅销的，《八十天环游地球》等数部小说一下子便各印刷了十多万册，几乎所有的孩子都人手一册，被放在各个家庭书橱中*显眼的地方……
——法国作家左拉