Jules Verne - Board game - Around the world in 80 days - 1877

Very rare Dutch board game - no other copies known, to the "Around the world in 80 days" by Jules Verne, published in The Netherlands in 1877. No examples in Dutch collections (with the exception of a facsimile in the collection of the Dutch Jules Verne society).
In 1877, P. Van Santen (and the Gebr. Koster) published a "Around the World" game. In December 1877, at the auction of the stock of van Santen, Robbers bought 2728 copies of this Goose game for 193 Dutch Florins.
(This game was the subject of the lecture Paul van den Brink gave in November 2006 for the Jules Verne society, entitled: A geographical game of goose and some cartographic side notes on the work of Jules Verne.
After selling the 2728 copies Robbers published this game under his own name. (Dutch Jules Verne society).

This is a rare children’s board game based on the famous novel by Jules Verne “Around the World in 80 Days”. Published at the time of the novel’s height of fame in the last quarter of the 19th century, it beautifully depicts the adventurous story of Mr. Phileas Phogg’s renowned fictitious circumnavigation. The game consists of 80 fields illustrating each day of his journey. A worldmap lies in the center of the board to symbolize the fact that the game takes the participants around the world. Above and underneath the globe the game rules.
Exotic destinations such as the Suez Canal, a pagoda in Bombay, Calcutta, Ganges, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York are only a few of the places traveled to within the course of the game. Scenes of many different kinds of people are also incorporated into the marvelous artwork of the game.

"Around the World in 80 Days" was written during difficult times, both for France and for Verne. It was during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) in which Verne was conscripted as a coastguard, he was having financial difficulties (his previous works were not paid royalties), his father had died recently, and he had witnessed a public execution, which had disturbed him.
Despite all this, Verne was excited about his work on the new book, the idea of which came to him one afternoon in a Paris café while reading a newspaper.

The technological innovations of the 19th century had opened the possibility of rapid circumnavigation and the prospect fascinated Verne and his readership.
In particular three technological breakthroughs occurred in 1869-70 that made a tourist-like around-the-world journey possible for the first time: the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in America (1869), the linking of the Indian railways across the sub-continent (1870), and the opening of the Suez Canal (1869).
It was another notable mark in the end of an age of exploration and the start of an age of fully global tourism that could be enjoyed in relative comfort and safety. It sparked the imagination that anyone could sit down, draw up a schedule, buy tickets and travel around the world, a feat previously reserved for only the most heroic and hardy of adventurers.