Character guide

Phileas Fogg

major

Also known as Mr. Phileas Fogg, Mr. Fogg, Fogg, Monsieur Phileas Fogg, Monsieur Fogg

Fogg lives by clockwork precision at the Reform Club until a casual whist-table argument over a newspaper robbery propels him into a twenty-thousand-pound wager. His unshakable calm and mathematical detachment make him both admirable and faintly inhuman, as even his traveling companions wonder whether a heart beats beneath the reserve. His obsessive exactness is the engine of the plot: every delay, from missed steamers to Indian railways, becomes a test of whether a man who has scheduled his life can survive a world that refuses to be scheduled.

Passepartout

major

Also known as Jean, Jean Passepartout, Mr. Passepartout

Passepartout takes the post at Saville Row hoping for a quiet life, only to be swept into a breakneck global dash the very day he starts. His impulsive warmth — brawling with Fix on a deck, rescuing Aouda from a funeral pyre, improvising disguises — makes him the emotional counterweight to Fogg's clockwork. He matters because his missteps and heroics generate the journey's most human moments, and because his devotion quietly proves that Fogg's cold exterior has earned something real.

Fix

major

Also known as Mr. Fix, Monsieur Fix, detective Fix

Fix first spots his quarry at Suez and spends the journey scheming to detain him on English soil until an arrest warrant catches up. His professional vanity and growing unease create a strange tension: the more he observes Fogg's scrupulous honor, the more his certainty frays, yet his reputation depends on the capture. He matters because his obstruction — bribing priests, drugging Passepartout, delaying steamers — supplies the obstacles that make Fogg's schedule a genuine gamble rather than a formality.

Aouda

supporting

Also known as Dear Aouda

Aouda is the cousin of a wealthy Bombay merchant, stranded in India after her husband's death and destined for the flames until Fogg and Passepartout intervene. Grateful, gentle, and observant, she becomes the one person whose presence seems to unsettle Fogg's reserve, her great eyes fixed on a man who will not throw himself into any lake. She matters because she gives the voyage a human stake beyond the wager — a reason for the reader to care whether the clock or the heart wins.

Sir Francis Cromarty

supporting

Also known as Sir Francis

Sir Francis, tanned from years in the East and deeply familiar with Indian customs, becomes Fogg's occasional card partner and reluctant travel companion across the subcontinent. He finds Fogg the most eccentric man he has ever met — a cold product of the exact sciences who seems to traverse the globe like a body obeying rational mechanics. He matters because his worldly commentary frames the Indian episodes, and his baffled humanity sharpens the reader's sense of just how strange Fogg's enterprise truly is.

Andrew Stuart

supporting

Also known as Stuart, Mr. Stuart, Messrs. Stuart

Stuart is one of Fogg's usual whist partners, a rich and respectable clubman who trades barbs about the stolen fifty-five thousand pounds and the likelihood of catching the thief. When the conversation turns to how fast one could circle the globe, his doubt becomes the spark that turns a parlor debate into a twenty-thousand-pound bet. He matters because he embodies the complacent London world Fogg leaves behind, and his skepticism sets the terms the whole journey must answer.

Gauthier Ralph

minor

Also known as Ralph

Engineer and fellow Reform Club member who participates in the wager discussion.

John Sullivan

minor

Also known as Sullivan

Reform Club member who follows Fogg's journey with interest.

Samuel Fallentin

minor

Also known as Fallentin

Banker and Reform Club member involved in the wager.

Colonel Stamp Proctor

supporting

Also known as Colonel Proctor, Stamp Proctor

Proctor belongs to the rough, loud world of frontier politics and saloon brawls, a man whose sense of honor runs hot where Fogg's runs ice-cold. His insult at the San Francisco meeting lodges in Fogg's memory as a debt that must eventually be paid, and when Aouda spots him aboard the same transcontinental train, she and Passepartout conspire to keep the two men apart for four tense days. He matters because he embodies the unpredictable human friction that Fogg's rigid schedule cannot account for, forcing the travelers to scheme and improvise.

John Bunsby

minor

Also known as John

Captain of the Tankadere, the ship that carries Fogg from Hong Kong to Shanghai.

Captain Speedy

supporting

Also known as Andrew Speedy

Speedy is a practical American mariner with a profitable cargo and no interest in detours, and his blunt resistance to Fogg's demands makes him a comic foil to the unflappable Englishman. Locked out of his own command, he howls in his cabin while Fogg drives the Henrietta through winter gales and dwindling coal, a hostage to a timetable he never agreed to. His presence sharpens the Atlantic crossing into a test of Fogg's nerve and resourcefulness, and his eventual fury foreshadows the reckoning awaiting them in Liverpool.

Mudge

minor

Driver of the sledge that carries Fogg across the American plains.

Elder William Hitch

minor

Also known as Elder Hitch

Mormon missionary encountered by Fogg during the train journey across America.

Judge Obadiah

minor

Mormon judge who briefly interacts with Fogg in Salt Lake City.

James Forster

minor

Also known as Forster

Fogg's former servant who is replaced by Passepartout at the story's start.

Mr. Batulcar

minor

Also known as the Honourable Mr. Batulcar

Circus impresario in Yokohama who employs Passepartout temporarily.

Lord Albemarle

minor

Also known as old Lord Albemarle

British nobleman mentioned in connection with the bank robbery.

The Parsee

minor

Also known as Parsee

Indian guide who leads Fogg's party through the jungle to rescue Aouda.

Kiouni

minor

Elephant purchased by Fogg for travel through the Indian jungle.

Thomas Flanagan

minor

Also known as Flanagan

Reform Club member who bets against Fogg's success.

Jeejeeh

minor

Parsee merchant who helps arrange Aouda's rescue and travel.

Brigham Young

minor

Mormon leader whose territory Fogg passes through in America.