Books

First edition in English of the complete lunar voyage, combining De la Terre à la Lune (1865) and its sequel Autour de la Lune (1869). It is a scarce book and copies in superb condition are rarely encountered. The idea of a return trip to the moon has fascinated writers from Lucian of Samosata in the second century CE to Dante, Cyrano de Bergerac, Daniel Defoe, Edgar Allan Poe, and countless others. Verne's, however, is "the most important lunar voyage in science-fiction; the first hard science-fiction novel with full recognition that the preparations for a moon voyage may be just as interesting as the lunar voyage itself. It is also one of the first lunar voyages written from the point of view of scientific adventure, rather than as personal satire or religious speculation" (Bleiler). The calculations in the work, such as the escape velocity required to leave Earth's orbit, were produced with the assistance of the mathematicians Henri Garcet (a cousin of Verne) and Joseph Bertrand. Verne's scientific ideas inspired Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a father of astronautics who envisioned multistage rockets as a feasible alternative to the large cannon or "space gun" design he encountered in the story. A century after its publication, Verne's tale was cited by Neil Armstrong during his own return voyage on Apollo 11. The work was also famously adapted by Georges Méliès for the film A Trip to the Moon (1902). De la Terre à la Lune alone had previously appeared in the English translation of J. K. Hoyt in America, where it was serialized and then published in wrappers without illustrations accompanying the text in 1869. The present edition precedes by one year the first US hardcover and illustrated edition of the complete voyage. Green and blue cloth variants have been noted in addition to the red seen here, without priority. READ MORE Octavo. Original red cloth over bevelled boards, spine and front cover decoratively blocked in gilt and black, front cover designed after plate facing p. 136, rear cover with blind rules and publisher's device, coated endpapers, edges gilt, binder's ticket of Burn & Co. to rear pastedown. Wood-engraved frontispiece with tissue guard, 79 wood-engraved plates, by Pannemaker, Doms, and Hildibrand, after Henri de Mountaut, Alphonse de Neuville, and Emile Bayard. Easter 1874 gift inscription on front free endpaper. Spine ends bumped, binding bright, minor rubbing and wear, inner hinges just starting, foxing to outer leaves, else generally clean. A near-fine copy. Bleiler 2230.

From the Earth to the Moon is a classic science fiction novel by Jules Verne, published in 1865. The story tells of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil War society of weapons enthusiasts, and their attempts to build an enormous space gun to launch three people—the Gun Club's president, his Philadelphian armor-making rival, and a French poet—towards the Moon.