EL TESTAMENTO DE UN EXCENTRICO

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Best known for '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' and Around The World In Eighty Days, Jules Verne also authored a number of other popular novels, that made it onto the big screen, such as 'The Mysterious Island,' and 'Journey To The Centre Of The World.'

'El Testamento de un excentrico' tells the story of the events that occurred after the death of William J. Hypperbone, a loner who nevertheless is a member of the Excentric Club , passionate about the game of goose, a native of Chicago and very wealthy.

The last wish of this man is to celebrate eccentric funerals in which joy, music and sumptuousness will prevail. In addition, it asks that, from among all the inhabitants of Chicago, six people be chosen by lot to attend the funerals.

After great expectation, the names of the winners of the draw are released (it was rumored that the heir to the Hypperbone fortune would come out of them), which are these:

- Hodge Urrican: ex- marine quite irascible and temperamental. He is accompanied by Turk, who is just as rabid.

- Lissy Wag: cashier , a simple young woman. She agrees to go to funerals at the insistence of her friend Jovita Foley and has a special interest in Max Real.

- Harris T Kymbale: journalist of the " Tribune " on one occasion have a duel with Commodore Urrican on a train.

- Hermann Titbury: usurer , miser, stingy, married and childless. It is always managed by Mrs. Titbury, who is just like him.

- Tom Crabbe: clumsy and bestial boxer . It is his representative , John Milner, who speaks and thinks for him. You could say that John Milner is the player, because Tom Crabbe is just the image.

- Max Real: painter, excited to travel, who has a lot of interest in Lissy Wag. He travels accompanied by his faithful servant Tommy.

The will itself indicates that it must be made public fifteen days after the death. After that time, it is read.

It is in the testament that the Hypperbone fortune, of $60 million dollars, will be awarded to the winner in a unique game of the goose that will take place in the territory of the United States of America. In this way, the 64 boxes of the game have been distributed among the 50 states that then made up that country , so that some states correspond to more than one box each. The six chosen by lottery will participate in the game, plus a mysterious player known only to XKZ.

After many days, the luck of the players is diverse. In the end, the game XKZ wins, which is the same Hypperbone, who had not died, but had suffered a cataleptic attack and who, after recovering and seeing the expectation created, let things continue with the help of the notary Tornbrock and the president of the Excentric Club : Mr. Higgingbotham. 

"The testament of an eccentric" ("Le Testament D'Un Excentrique") is a novel by the French writer Jules Verne published in the second series of the " Magazine of illustration and recreation " ("Magasin d'Education et de Récréation") from January 1 (volume 9, number 97) to the 15 of December of 1899 (volume 10, number 120), and as the whole book August 3 that year.

At the beginning of his literary work, Verne describes Americans as similar in character to the English . However, as his work progresses, he seems to distinguish one from the other, and presents the English as cold, conceited, rude and unfriendly; and to the Americans, as tough, ambitious, kind but with firm intentions, and feel in them the hope of the world, the best example of this being the novel Héctor Servadac . It is also interesting to see the story "Journey of a journalist in the XXIX century".

In the novel "The testament of an eccentric", the Americans are coldly portrayed, and he takes eccentricity to the extreme again, as he had already done so in one of his first works: " From the Earth to the Moon ".

Jules Verne was the author of many adventure stories:

1  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
2  Around the World in Eighty Days
3  Journey to the Center of the Earth
4  The Mysterious Island (Extraordinary Voyages #12)
5  From the Earth to the Moon
6  Michael Strogoff (Extraordinary Voyages, #14)
7  In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant (Extraordinary Voyages, #5)
8  Five Weeks in a Balloon

9  Round the Moon (Extraordinary Voyages, #7)
10 Adrift in the Pacific: Two Years Holiday (Extraordinary Voyages, #32)
11 The Master of the World (Extraordinary Voyages, #53)
12 The Adventures of Captain Hatteras
13 Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine; The Tribulations of a Chinese in China (Extraordinary Voyages, #19)
14 The Lighthouse at the End of the World
15 Mathias Sandorf (Extraordinary Voyages, #27)
16 Off On A Comet (Extraordinary Voyages, #15)
17 Los quinientos millones de la Begún (The five hundred million of the Begún)
18 Facing the Flag (Extraordinary Voyages, #42)
19 Un capitán de quince años (A fifteen year old captain)
20 El Testamento de un excentrico (The Testament of an eccentric)

Jules Verne is also known as the Father of Science Fiction

ZEWT ALORS - The solar and wind powered 'Elizabeth Swann' will feature solar collectors and wind energy harvesting apparatus in an advanced configuration. Her hull configuration is ideal for mass hydrogen storage tanks, offering ranges of up to 4,000nm on compressed gas, and could circumnavigate the globe on one fill up of liquid hydrogen, stored in two cryogenic tanks. Unfortunately, at this stage not in under 80 days, to equal the famous Jules Verne round the world record.

It was Jules Verne's fictional character, 'Philleas Fogg', who suggested that it might be possible to travel Around The World In 80 Days. But what about doing it in a Zero Emission yacht driven by electric hydro-jets? With the advent of solar power and liquid hydrogen, it is a distinct possibility - on a scale of the wager that the legendary Philleas Fogg entered into at the Reform Club in 1872.

In 1874, Jules Verne set out a prescient vision that has inspired governments and entrepreneurs in the 147 years since. In his book The Mysterious Island, Verne wrote of a world where "water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable."

In 2021 we have the technology to make that foretelling a reality, to include using hydrogen to travel around the world in 80 days.

JULES VERNE LINKS & REFERENCE

http://jules-verne.org/

http://jules-verne.org/

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  AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS - JULES VERNE, PHILLEAS FOGG

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