Round the World Again in 80 Days

Jean Cocteau retraces the most celebrated round-the-world voyage of all that of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg in 1873. Taking up an impulsive challenge from the editor of Paris-Soir , Cocteau sets off with his very own ‘Passepartout’ as companion on a picaresque voyage some sixty-three years after his fictional predecessor. He finds that the journey has lost none of its hazards and adventures as he races around the globe in tramp-ship, railway and ocean liner. Observing and recording the frenetic change of scenes from Athens and Alexandria to Bombay, Rangoon, and Yokohama and finally across the United States, Cocteau’s witty, subjective and sometimes outrageous narrative gives this unique travel-memoir a camp and stylish spin.