All these years, I thought there would be a balloon :(
I've just finished reading 'Around the World in 80 Days' by Jules Verne. It is extremely charming, and I loved it. Here is the cover of the paperback edition I read--
Imagine my surprise when I get to the final sentence of the book and....no balloon. I thought I'd lost my mind. Wikipedia pretty well sums up the phenomenon here--
Although a journey by hot air balloon has become one of the images most strongly associated with the story, this iconic symbol was never deployed in the book by Verne himself - the idea is briefly brought up in chapter 32, but dismissed, it "would have been highly risky and, in any case, impossible." However the popular 1956 movie adaptation Around the World in Eighty Days floated the balloon idea, and it has now become a part of the mythology of the story, even appearing on book covers. This plot element is reminiscent of Verne's earlier Five Weeks in a Balloon which first made him a well-known author.
Imagine my surprise when I get to the final sentence of the book and....no balloon. I thought I'd lost my mind. Wikipedia pretty well sums up the phenomenon here--
Although a journey by hot air balloon has become one of the images most strongly associated with the story, this iconic symbol was never deployed in the book by Verne himself - the idea is briefly brought up in chapter 32, but dismissed, it "would have been highly risky and, in any case, impossible." However the popular 1956 movie adaptation Around the World in Eighty Days floated the balloon idea, and it has now become a part of the mythology of the story, even appearing on book covers. This plot element is reminiscent of Verne's earlier Five Weeks in a Balloon which first made him a well-known author.