The First Men in the Moon

Abstract

The idea of describing an imaginary journey to the moon had been attempted by many writers before The First Men in the Moon appeared in 1901. As long ago as the second century Lucian in Icaromenippus had exploited the idea, and a quotation from his romance appears on the title page of the first edition. In 1835 Edgar Allan Poe, in The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, gave an account of a flight to the moon and back in a balloon. And ih 1865 Jules Verne returned to the theme in From the Earth to the Moon (and again in a sequel, Round the Moon). What is new and original in Wells’s story is first the fact that the journey to the moon is undertaken not by caricature figures but by well-drawn and convincing individuals; second, the idea of the anti-gravity device, ‘Cavorite’, which makes possible the construction of the sphere; third, the detailed and circumstantial descriptions of the lunar landscape; and finally the satirical account of the Selenite civilisation. It is these elements, combined with an assured narrative style, which have won for The First Men in the Moon a permanent place in the literature of science fiction as a classic of the imagination.