Five Weeks in a Balloon

Dr Samuel Fergusson, his reluctant friend Dick Kennedy, a hunter, and his cheerful servant Joe set out from Zanzibar to cross Africa from east to west in a hydrogen balloon called the Victoria. Fergusson has invented a way to rise and fall by heating the gas, so they can float on the winds over deserts, lakes and the then-unknown sources of the Nile.

Published in 1863, this was Jules Verne's first novel and the start of his long partnership with the publisher Hetzel. The geography reflects European knowledge and attitudes of its time, but the mix of adventure and real science is already pure Verne, leading on to Around the World in Eighty Days.

Jules Verne (1828–1905) grew up in the port city of Nantes, watching ships leave for distant lands. Sent to Paris to study law, he wrote for the theatre instead, until the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel accepted Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1863 and signed him for a series of 'extraordinary voyages' that lasted the rest of his life.

In more than sixty novels he took readers under the sea, to the Moon and around the world, mixing adventure with real science and geography. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days made him one of the most translated authors in history and inspired generations of scientists and explorers.