In an age where global travel within a limited time frame was unusual and reserved for heroic adventurers, Phileas Fogg bets his companions at the Reform Club 20,000 pounds that he can circumnavigate the world in only eighty days. Accompanied by his valet Passepartout, they attempt this feat. Despite obstacles thrown at them by man and nature, Fogg is determined that he will not be defeated. Gripping reading.

Lewis "Lew" Wallace was a lawyer, governor, Union general in the American Civil War, and American statesman. He is best remembered for Ben-Hur, an historical fiction set amongst the characters of the New Testament. It was America's best selling novel for nearly sixty years after it's publication.

Follow the wikipedia link to see a great photo of the author.

Publishers Weekly #1 Best Seller for 1902.

This novel was the grandfather of the Western genre and follows a natural gentleman as he is entangled with the new Wyoming state's 1890s Johnson County War - the ugly side of the consolidation of The American West. A cabal of large vested interests and a diffuse collection of small players fight for control of access rights to publicly owned common range land. Rhetoric and actions escalate and culminated in some nasty lynchings, the use of a gang of hired Texan killers (with the tacit approval of the state Governor), the murder of a small rancher, the siege of the Texans by a posse of 200, and their eventual rescue by the U.S. sixth cavalry at the orders of the president.