Cover of Five Weeks in a Balloon
  • 8 hr 49 min · 45 chapters
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"Five Weeks in a Balloon" is, in a measure, a satire on modern books of African travel.
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Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, A Journey of Discovery by Three Englishmen in Africa is an adventure novel by Jules Verne, published in 1863.

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45 chapters · 8 hr 49 min

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Publishers’ Note

"Five Weeks in a Balloon" is, in a measure, a satire on modern books of African travel. So far as the geography, the inhabitants, the animals, and the features of the countries the travellers pass over are described, it is entirely accurate. It gives, in some particulars, a survey of nearly the whole field of African discovery, and in this way will often serve to refresh the memory of the reader. The mode of locomotion is, of course, purely imaginary, and the incidents and adventures fictitious. The latter are abundantly amusing, and, in view of the wonderful "travellers' tales" with which we have been entertained by African explorers, they can scarcely be considered extravagant; while the ingenuity and invention of the author will be sure to excite the surprise and the admiration of the reader, who will find M. VERNE as much at home in voyaging through the air as in journeying "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas."

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Portrait of Jules Verne

About the author

Jules Verne

1828 Nantes – 1905 Amiens · French writer

Jules Gabriel Verne was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, and Around the World in Eighty Days.

  1. 1828Born, Nantes
  2. 1863Five Weeks in a Balloon
  3. 1864A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
  4. 1865From the Earth to the Moon
  5. 1868In Search of the Castaways
  6. 1869Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
  7. 1905Died, Amiens

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