Five Weeks in a Balloon is the first book in Jules Verne's Voyages extraordinaires series which includes the novels Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days. The story follows explorer Dr. Samuel Fergusson, his manservant Joe, and his friend Dick Kennedy as they travel across the African continent in a hot air balloon. The novel was first published in 1863 and was an instant success.