Fun Links
SECTION I: LINKS AROUND THE WORLD
Whether you left the theater curious about facets of Britain’s 19th-century Empire, hungry to know more about Southeast Asia, or eager to explore the 1870s history of Hong Kong and what made it a lynchpin of international trade, it’s easy to get sucked into the worlds of Around the World. These links might make it that much easier.
Victorian Travel and Exploration
The British Empire
China
Africa
India
Japan
The United States
Victorian Travel and Exploration
20 reasons why Victorian tourists had it worse than us
This diverting collection from the Telegraph includes such woes as the inability to find decent tea, undersized beds, and a surplus of garlic-chomping peasants.
Around the World in the 1890s
A little bit later than the world of 80 Days (which is set during the 1870s), but a fantastic resource for worldwide travel images.
BBC History: Victorian Technology
Learn about some of the technological advancements that allowed Victorians to travel far and wide.
Bradshaw’s monthly Continental Railway, Steam Transit, and General Guide, for Travelers Through Europe
Not quite Fogg’s esteemed edition, but a fair example from 1866, furnished by our friends at Google Books.
A brief history of the passport
An article from The Guardian sketches the history of that most valuable document.
“My Kingdom for an Emu?”
Across the globe, travelers might find themselves sitting astride anything from elephants to camels to ostriches. This site presents many photographic samples of whimsical transit from the period, and the main site offers further animal-centric exotica.
Expeditions in the 19th Century
A fairly brief summary of some of the 19th Century's most famous real-life voyages.
It’s the end of the line
A requiem for the beloved Bradshaw’s Guide, as found in The Telegraph.
Map History/History of Cartography
This vast collection of historical maps is an invaluable resource, showing antique maps of countries and cities around the world (including views of the entire known world, morphing over the course of centuries).
RCS Photograph Project
The Royal Commonwealth Society at the Cambridge University Library, comprised of over 70,000 images, includes pictures taken from the 1850s through the 1980s over the enormous expanses of the British Commonwealth. Easy to browse, with a broad range of categories and images, and highly recommended. Be careful though: once you click through, get ready to spend hours and hours looking at stunning images.
A Victorian Timeline
Just what was the Victorian Age? This brief overview provides some quick context.
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The British Empire
The British Empire
Includes an overview of the Empire, along with a glossary; gallery; and further fun, excitement, and information.
The British Empire: An Internet Gateway
The University of Alberta pitches in with a thorough (and somewhat dry) survey, as well as a prodigious collection of links.
Victorian History – The British Empire, an Overview
Collected bits of information from around the Empire. An enticingly varied smattering, with some interestingly esoteric factoids of the not-garden variety.
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China
China in Maps: 1500–1900
Check out the stunning, panoramic views of Hong Kong, especially its 19th-century iteration.
In Pictures: 19th-Century China
From the BBC news site, small a collection of photographs.
Timeline of Chinese Dynasties
Including a brief section on 19th-century China.
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Africa
Cook’s Tourists’ Handbook for Egypt, the Nile, and the Desert
Published in 1876, this primary source provides illuminating period detail on the Suez Canal, among other locations, as people experienced it at the time.
The Suez Canal
An overview and history of the canal that permanently altered travel around the world and helped make Fogg’s journey feasible.
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India
19th-Century History of Mumbai
Brief overview of India’s largest port city through the 1800s.
History of Mumbai
For the more intrepid history nerds: a comprehensive overview of the Indian island and capital city.
Internet Indian History Sourcebook
A valuable compendium of contemporary accounts, from Indian and not merely colonial perspectives.
Kamat Research Database
Subtitled “A Full Text Reference Database on India,” this site delves deeply into the specifics of Indian life and culture.
Old Pictures of India
Sensational images of Mumbai and Kolkata (also known as Bombay and Calcutta), evocative of scenes from the play.
Palanquins with a view
A fascinating article on the background of various traditional modes of transportation (including palanquins, bullock-carts, and so on) in India.
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Japan
Japanese History: Meiji Period
Overview of Japan as it evolved from the late 10th Century into the 20th, from a culture that had remained static for hundreds of years into one that would be remade almost overnight.
MIT Visualizing Cultures
The section entitled “Yokohama Boomtown” contains written and visual views (including many beautiful prints) of the port city that grew in bounds and leaps from an abandoned beach into one of the largest cities in Asia.
Photographic Views of Meiji
Pictures from the late 19th Century.
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United States
American Experience: The Transcontinental Railroad
A PBS website on the conception and construction of the railroad that spanned this continent, another crucial link in Fogg’s then high-tech, modern marvel of a journey. Includes a particularly sleek interactive map, a timeline, and quite a lot of information in between.
The American West
This vast array of Old West-related links includes everything from bison to gambling to family life.
Iowa Pathways, Artifacts
Seemingly specific to Iowa, this site nevertheless exhibits a number of useful tidbits more largely representative of Western life, including a steamboat video and interactive maps of the frontier.
Union Pacific: History and Photos
Including the railroad’s history, information on particular machines, photographs, and more.
Victorian San Francisco
Take a peek at the section on the culture and customs of one of the oldest Western American cities.
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SECTION II: JULES VERNE, AROUND THE WORLD, AND THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINATION
The Verne universe is broad and surprisingly influential. Follow the trail of our favorite French fantasist (and realist!) and you’ll find a lasting literary legacy touching on geography, science, history, and the dreamlife of our modern world.
Jules Verne
Around the World in 80 Days
The Scientific Imagination
Jules Verne
Garmt de Vries’ Jules Verne Collection
From an excursion following Fogg’s routine around London to a collection of Verne-related trivia to an extensive quiz, this site provides a pleasantly eccentric variety of ephemera.
The Jules Verne: Board Games
Curious about the sort of puzzles and board games Around the World in 80 Days has inspired? Wondering what the cover of an 1873 edition of 80 Days looked like? Looking to browse through a collection of Verne-related odds and ends, ranging photographs to comic books to playing cards? This site will reward either a quick glance or more extensive exploration.
Zvi Har ‘El’s Jules Verne Collection
Information, images, and links galore. Includes a comprehensive electronic archive of Verne’s works (from novels to plays and essays), as well as interviews and speeches.
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Around the World in 80 Days
Around the World in 80 Days
Verne’s novel, as translated by William Butcher and accompanied by Butcher’s fanatically detailed commentary and contextual notes.
The Great Reading Adventure: Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days
Includes information pertaining to the novel and its background, and offers a guide for younger readers, with plenty of diverting and educational activities.
Illustrations de Le Tour du Monde en 80 Jours
Illustrations from an 1873 French edition of Verne’s novel. As a bit of a warning, this may take a while to load.
The Phileas Fogg Project
Go around the world in 80 clicks, flip through Phileas Fogg’s online photo album, learn all about Jules Verne, or check out a comprehensive webzine covering everything from Victorian Art Nouveau to Cambodian monuments. This website has it all.
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The Scientific Imagination
Along with Edgar Allan Poe and H.G. Wells, Jules Verne has often been cited as one of the fathers of science fiction. Though scholars continue to argue over the exact nature of his contributions, one thing is clear: without his works, the genre would be missing much of its initial imaginative impetus, its exploration of the most contemporary advances in science and society, its charting of the modern world and its incredible pictures of the future.
Discovery Channel: Sci-Fi Zone
Charts the evolution of science fiction, noting everything from its origins (including Verne’s contribution) to current manifestations and inspirations.
The Man Who Invented Tomorrow
James Gunn’s article, from The Science of Science-Fiction, on Verne and his influence on science fiction. Also touched on are Verne’s rival H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, the theories of Charles Darwin, and the Fabian Society—which counted as a member that well-known vegetarian, George Bernard Shaw.
A Basic Science-Fiction Library
James Gunn ain’t done! He also compiles a thorough sci-fi library, from A (Adams’ beloved Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) to Z (Zelazny’s Lord of Light, in which a group of humans on a colony planet use technology to give themselves the powers of Hindu Gods). Complete with links to online book dealers.
Science Fiction Subgenres
Description of various sub-genres; though certainly not definitive, these designations give a sense of the many flavors of sci-fi.
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SECTION III: FROM STEAM ENGINES TO STEAM PUNK
Alongside being one of the acknowledged fathers of science fiction, Jules Verne has had a formative influence on a popular subculture that has come to be known as steampunk. It started in the 1980s and early ’90s, spreading from comic books and animated films into full-blown speculative fiction that imagined common science fiction and fantasy elements intersecting the steam-powered 19th Century—most often in the Victorian England popularized by Verne and H.G. Wells. Steampunk has since influenced several major motion pictures, from the Will Smith remake of Wild, Wild West to the fantastical League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and grown into a way of life for some—complete with working prototypes and creative attire. In place of an original impulse to envision an alternate Victorian era, it has evolved into an attempt to imagine and even inhabit an alternate vision of today, along steam-powered lines.
Wondering what the world might look like if it still ran on gas-lit lamps, steam-powered engines, and coal-driven combustion? What if computers, cars, guitars, and ipods weren’t made up of modern plastic and circuitry, but rather composed of brass, copper, and interlocking gears? Take a look and enter a fun alternate reality.
Jules Verne and Steampunk
A dedicated steampunk blogger takes you deep into the Jules Verne cultural diaspora. Especially cool are images of Jules Verne’s house in Amiens, tricked out with globes, Victorian wallpaper, the Casa Battló in Barcelona, an Art Nouveau building with a fishlike exoskeleton, and a submarine interior; a painstaking recreation of the inside of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus; and much more.
Jules Verne Meets Terry Gilliam
A design critic traces the Steampunk aesthetic, as manifested in such varied artistic enterprises as Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, the books of Verne and Wells, and a whole bunch of gorgeous custom-made pieces of craftsmanship.
New York Times: Steampunk Moves Between Two Worlds
The Grey Lady shines a light on the movement, and some of the most hardcore devotees of the lifestyle.
What is Steampunk?
MTV News connects the dots.
The Top 10 Coolest Steampunk Gadgets
Steampunk Taxidermy! Steampunk Iron Man! Steampunk flash drives! Is there anything that cannot be steampunk-ified?
Vernian Process
The website of Steampunk or “Darkwave” band Vernian Process. If Joy Division were Verne fans (rather than fans of Brit sci-fi dystopian J.G. Ballard) maybe they would have made records that sounded like this.
The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne
A steampunk TV show that imagines a vast conspiracy in which Jules Verne not only wrote the famous adventures from his books, but he actually experienced them, along with pals Phileas Fogg, cousin Rebecca Fogg, Passepartout, in the dirigible airship The Aurora. It’s like a cross between Star Trek, Around the World in 80 Days, and Young Indiana Jones.
Steampunk Star Wars
What if Star Wars happened in Victorian London? These illustrations provide a glimpse of an Obi-Wan Kenobi who looks more than a bit like Charles Darwin, Princess Leia in a corset, a steam-powered Darth Vader, and many more inspired amalgams.
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SECTION IV: FUN AND GAMES
For the young, the young at heart, or anyone looking for a brief diversion.
Printables:
Mad lib
Word search
Word scramble
Interactive Links:
Wanderlust
A collection of maps outlining famed voyages real and fictional, including the journey of Phileas Fogg. Among the other maps may be found the route of the Union Pacific Transcontinental Railroad (used during Fogg’s trip), as well as the path followed in A Journey to the Center of the Earth (another of Verne’s novels).
Around the World in 80 Days: The Game
Enjoy this flash game based on Verne’s novel, filled with puzzles and framed by incidents from the story. Amusing, sleek, and a little bit addictive.
The Great Reading Adventure: Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days
Includes information pertaining to the novel and its background, and offers a guide for younger readers, with plenty of diverting and educational activities.
Fictional Convergences of London
Google Maps have finally found one of their most fun and time-wasting uses: tracing the paths of Phileas Fogg’s fictional peers in Victorian London. Want to know where Dr. Jekyll (and Mr. Hyde) lived? How about Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray? Check it out.
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