"""Jules Verne's Around The World In 80 Days (1873) is the story of Phileas Fogg, an affluent English gentleman who leads a solitar y life. Though Fogg doesn't boast of a vibrant social life, he is a member of the Reform Club. After reading an article in The Daily Telegraph about the opening of a new railway section in India, which promises to make travel around the world possible in 80 days, he accepts a wager for 20,000 from fellow club members, which will be given to him only if he makes it around the world in 80 days. With his newly employed French manservant Passepartout, he leaves London by train on 2 October 1872. From rescuing a Raja's young wife from sati in the exotic land of India, boarding a train from San Francisco to New York which is attacked by a livid Sioux tribe, to finding a steamboat destined for Bordeaux, France, the heroic travellers ""adventures continue to mesmerise readers even today."" """First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is one of the foremost works of English literature. A mix of adventure fiction, travelogue and autobiography, the novel was a huge success following its publication, running into several prints within Defoe's lifetime. Although the novel is believed to have been based on the story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, Defoe masterfully crafts the main story into a fascinating tale of ambition, adventure, spiritualism and bravery. The protagonist and narrator, Robinson Crusoe, writes about his voyages at sea and his mercantile drive which take him far from his native England. In the course of his journey, he is enslaved, shipwrecked on an island in the midst of cannibals, travels to Brazil and secures a plantation, besides much else. This wonderful tale gave rise to a literary genre, the Robinsonade. Robinson Crusoe remains an evergreen classic and has been adapted to film, television, comics and video games."" """First published as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, Gulliver's Travels is a fine example of satire on human nature as well as on the genre of travel writing. A masterpiece of English literature, the novel has never gone out of print since its publication in 1726. Its universality is truly commendable as it can be read as a children's story as well as a work of satire on English politics and society. The story follows the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver as he travels to four distinct lands-Lilliput, Brobdingnag, the kingdom of Laputa and surrounding territories, and the Land of the Houyhnhnms where he meets curious creatures and witnesses worldviews starkly opposed to that of the English society he is so familiar with. An evergreen tale, Gulliver's Travels has been adapted to music, film, television and radio several times over the years.""About the Author"Born on 8 February 1828, Jules Gabriel Verne was a French novelist, poet and playwright who has also been the second most-translated writer in the world since 1979. Popular for writing about air, underwater and space travel much before submarines or air travel became a reality, Verne was a visionary. Early in life, he began writing for magazines and his collaboration with Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages Extraordinaires series that included Journey To The Center Of The Earth (1864), 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1870) and Around The World In 80 Days (1873). A writer of plays, poems, operetta libretti, short stories, essays and miscellaneous non-fiction, Verne, in his works imagined a more harmonious and humanitarian society. English translations of Verne's novels began in 1869 with William Lackland's translation of Five Weeks In A Balloon (originally published in 1863), and continued throughout his writing career, with publishers and translators working together to have his most popular books printed into English language. On Verne and his influence on literature, Ray Bradbury had remarked, ""We are all, in one way or another, the