Dec 10, 2009

Around the World in Eighty Days | Characters

Phileas Fogg, the Englishman who bets a fortune just to prove that he can circle the globe in record time, is one of Verne's best creations. He is almost a caricature of what the French think of their English neighbors. He is an English gentleman. In the opening chapter, Verne perversely tells us what Fogg is not, and the reader does not get to meet him until the second chapter. Then we hear that

Phileas Fogg was one of those mathematically precise beings who, never in a hurry and always ready, are economical in their steps and movements. He never made an unnecessary...