Five Weeks in a Balloon

&quot;Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen" (French: «Cinq semaines en ballon») is an adventure novel by Jules Verne. <br/> It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the «ingredients» of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader&apos;s interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets. <br/> Public interest in fanciful tales of African exploration was at its height, and the book was an instant hit; it made Verne financially independent and got him a contract with Jules Hetzel&apos;s publishing house, which put out several dozen more works of his for over forty years afterward.