Philomena Fogg: The real-life Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in 80 Days: In 1889 rivals Elizabeth Bisland, left, and Nellie Bly entered a race to turn Verne's work of fiction into fact. Photo / US Library of Congress, CC

As Around the World in 80 Days passes a major milestone, Thomas Bywater looks at the Phileas Fogg Club and the real life adventures inspired by the story. The first to attempt the wager were two rival, female journalists whose race was every bit as thrilling.

Jules Verne's ultimate travel story turns 150 this year.

One man's quest to circumnavigate the globe in 80 sunsets, using the latest modes of transport and cunning to visit the most exotic parts of the world, and return to tell the tale:

After French, Le Tour du Monde has been translated into 30 languages and adapted for film, television and stage as many times.

So, why do we keep coming back to Phileas Fogg and his wager? Thanks to the jet engine, and the ultra-long haul programmes of airlines like Qantas, you can traverse the world in just a couple of uncomfortable plane-connections.

Although, 'Around the world in 38 hours, 40 minutes' doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

As a famous French Sci-Fi writer, Jules would have loved the Boeing 787, but he could not have dreamed that his story would still be capturing the imaginations of travellers today. Or, that he would inspire travellers just as bold as Fogg and Passepartout to complete the trip.

150 years ago, international travel was being born. It's no accident that travel Agent Thomas Cook launched the first 'Round the World Tour' the same year as Verne's book was published. Although, the cruise took 222 days to complete the journey.

For some travellers this was not fast enough.

In 1889, two female journalists and adversaries set out to beat the wager invented by Verne.

Nellie Bly, a reporter for The New York World, announced she would be attempting to beat the 80 days, travelling from Manhattan. With the blessing of Jules Verne she set off just before 10am on 14 November 1889.

Around the World: Departing Manhattan on 14 November 1889, both adventurers attempted to race Fogg, and each other. Photo / Creative Commons

The 25-year-old veteran reporter had a reputation as a hardened investigative journalist. She had written a grizzly exposé into abuse in the New York Women's Asylum, 'feigning insanity' to report undercover from the Blackwell's Island Institute. She also evaded arrest in Mexico for writing unflattering reports on dictator Porfirio Diaz.

The challenge of travelling solo around the world did not faze her.

But little did Bly know she had a real life rival, Elizabeth Bisland. The second female journalist was hired by Cosmopolitan magazine, which also wanted to be the first to break Verne's 80 day challenge.

Bisland had none of the precocious character of Bly. She was better known for poetry and fiction. A quiet, cerebral writer, Bisland wrote under pen names for newspapers in New Orleans before catching the attention of Cosmopolitan. However, when the opportunity arose to travel the world, she took it.

Her editor John Brisben gave her six hours notice and a ticket to Europe.

Bisland and Bly departed New York on the same day, via steam liner.

Later learning that she had a rival, The New York World reporter said she did not want a race, and was not worried by the competition.

"If someone else wants to do the trip in less time, that is their concern," said Bly. However she quickly booked an earlier ticket across the Pacific, and sped up her pace of travel.

For much of the journey they were no more than a few days distant from one another.

From their dispatches you'd have thought they were making an entirely different journey.
Bly's telegrams told of swimming with sharks in Sri Lanka and being threatened by Italian bandits.

Bisland's most fearsome encounters were with a black rat in Hong Kong and an attack of 'Mal de Mere'.

She raced her nemesis Bly in rickshaws through the streets of Singapore - and steamers on the high seas.

The cover of The Evening World on January 25 1890 celebrates Bly's race around the world. Photo / National Library of Congress Archive

However it was reportedly the editors who sought to sabotage the competition and fix the result. In Race Around the World in 72 Days, Bly's boss Joseph Pulitzer was accused of bribing shipping companies to book Bisland onto later connections and in one case causing her to miss a vital fast connection from Southampton.

Eventually Bisland made it back to Manhattan four days and six hours behind Bly, who had already enjoyed a welcome parade and a private train into New Jersey, funded by Pulitzer.
Bisland was not dispirited. For she had not beaten Bly, but she had won Verne's wager and beaten Phileas Fogg by three days.

". . . The ship slides into dock. I can see the glad faces of my friends upon the pier. My journey is done. I have been around the world in seventy-six days," she wrote.

"I did do other things equally preposterous, of which I would not have believed myself capable if forewarned of them."

The Phileas Fogg Club

Bly and Bisland never mentioned each other in their respective books - Around the World in 72 Days and A Flying Trip Around The World - but their careers were joined by the journey ever since. (Uncannily, they are buried just a couple hundred metres apart in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York.)

They were the first members in a club of eccentric adventurers who took on the world in 80 days.

They have been joined by other adventurers since. James Sayre, public transport enthusiast set a record in 54 and a half days, just four years later.

In 1928 a boy scout from Denmark Palle Huld lapped them all, in 44 days.

Several Travel writers, comedians and adventurers have since tried to emulate the famous journey that Phileas Fogg completed in the 1872 book.

Famously Michael Palin, made the journey in 79 days for a BBC travelogue. Following in the footsteps of Fogg from the London Reform Club, he never completed the journey.

Palin was foiled in the finals steps and the club's strict dress code. After forgetting to pack a tie, he couldn't enter the club and ended his journey on the steps of the Mall.

One of the weirdest attempts involved Harry Bensley who in 1907 was bet a wager of £20,000 to walk around the world wearing an iron mask while pushing a perambulator.

Around the World in 80 Days begins on Saturday 12 March at 8.30pm, TVNZ