The Best Translation of Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days was written in French. 2 recommended editions, ranked — with Gröblé’s verdict on which to read first.
Michael Glencross
Penguin Classics · 2004 · 248 pages
Glencross restores passages that earlier English versions quietly dropped, and his pace matches Verne's. The introduction sets the novel against the railway-and-steamship globalization that made the premise plausible in 1872.
Every recommended edition, compared
The 1873 Towle is the version most people have actually read for 150 years. Slightly old-fashioned but perfectly serviceable, and the Dover prints it cheap enough to throw in a bag.
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Reading Around the World in Eighty Days in translation
Around the World in Eighty Days was written in French, so unless you read French, the translator decides the book you actually experience — its register, its pace, how it sounds read aloud. Two editions of the same work can feel like different books.
The ranking above is Gröblé’s: one reader’s verdict on which English gets you closest, not a publisher’s blurb. Start with the top pick; reach for the others when you want a different angle on the original.