From the Earth to the Moon: Direct in 97 Hours 20 Minutes: and a Trip Round It.

VERNE, Jules.

Item Number: 140456

New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Company, 1874.

First American edition of Verne’s classic novel. Octavo, original publisher’s green cloth decorated in gilt, all edges gilt, illustrated with eighty full-page black-and-white illustrated plates inserted throughout. Translated from the French by Louis Mercier and Eleanor E. King. In very good condition.

Jules Verne is widely held as “one of the two founding fathers of science fiction—the other being H.G. Wells” (Clute & Nicholls, 1275). Written almost a century before the flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne's prophetic novel of man's race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen. From the Earth to the Moon is “the first interplanetary novel to focus on the technical and organizational preparations for the voyage, using the actual blast-off as a climax, introducing thereby a new narrative realism… And a Trip Around It continues the story by describing the experiences of the intrepid voyagers as they observe the Moon en passant before a slingshot effect hurls them earthward again. The couplet is one of the definitive foundation stones of the science fiction genre” (Barron:II:1180).