Review: Around The World in Eighty Days

Jules Verne

“The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last moment.”

6.5

Follow Phileas Fogg as he attempts the impossible. After making an outrageous wager, he sets off with his new valet, Passepartout, to travel around the world in just eighty days. By boat, train, and even elephant, the pair race against time—facing delays, daring rescues, and unexpected challenges—all while being pursued by a detective convinced Fogg is a criminal.

Judging The Book By It’s Cover

The edition we’re reviewing is the 2020 Penguin Classics clothbound edition, designed and illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

We picked up this book as part of our ongoing collection of clothbound classics. We love this cover design—it perfectly captures the adventurous spirit of Around the World in Eighty Days. The pattern of stamps represents the places Phileas Fogg travels to, each with a unique design that subtly hints at the cultural encounters throughout the story. The deep blue cloth binding is striking, especially against the golden-yellow accents of the insert and ribbon bookmark.

Our only complaint is that the illustration printing is prone to rubbing off, which takes away from the book’s overall appeal. It’s a stunning cover, but we would have liked slightly better durability in the print quality.

Closing the Book

Around the World in Eighty Days is an enjoyable story, but we couldn’t help feeling it had the potential to be much more. While the premise suggests an adventure, the novel often reads more like a rigid itinerary—detailing modes of transport and schedules rather than immersing the reader in excitement. Phileas Fogg undertakes daring feats, yet he himself lacks an adventurous spirit, bound more by duty and habit than any real curiosity or passion. The moments where he does show glimpses of humanity are the book’s strongest, but they’re too few and far between to make him a compelling protagonist.

At times, it felt as though Jules Verne wasn’t entirely sure how to write an adventure story. Key events happen off-page while he lingers on logistics. That said, his descriptive writing—especially when depicting oceans and storms—is incredibly vivid. These passages were the highlight for us, drawing us in and keeping us engaged even when the plot itself felt lacking.

Of course, this book is very much of its time. Some of the language and attitudes are outdated (and rightly recognized as unacceptable today). Aouda, the novel’s sole female character, is treated as fragile, despite enduring every hardship alongside the men—though only after being saved, of course. She often feels more like a piece of luggage than an equal traveling companion.

We also wished the book had fleshed out its characters more. Passepartout, for instance, had hints of an intriguing backstory that were never fully explored. And while Fogg is deliberately written as an enigma, he remains one from start to finish, making it difficult to connect with him. Ultimately, we enjoyed Around the World in Eighty Days, but we wanted more. The ending left us feeling underwhelmed and unsatisfied. Neither of us are likely to revisit the book anytime soon—instead, we’d recommend the recent TV adaptation, which delivers the sense of adventure we had hoped for in the novel.