Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen is an
adventure novel by
Jules Verne, published in 1863. It is the first novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader'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.