 First US edition | |
| Author | H. G. Wells |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, Scientific romance |
| Published | 1901[1] |
| Publisher | George Newnes (UK) Bowen-Merrill (US) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 342 |
| OCLC | 655463 |
| Text | The First Men in the Moon at Wikisource |
The First Men in the Moon by the English author H. G. Wells is a scientific romance, originally serialised in The Strand Magazine and The Cosmopolitan from November 1900 to June 1901 and published in hardcover in 1901.[2] Wells called it one of his "fantastic stories".[3] The novel recounts a journey to the Moon by the two protagonists: a businessman narrator, Mr. Bedford; and an eccentric scientist, Mr. Cavor. Bedford and Cavor discover that the Moon is inhabited by a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilisation of insect-like creatures they call "Selenites". The inspiration seems to come from the famous 1865 book by Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon, and the opera by Jacques Offenbach from 1875. Verne's novel also uses the word "Selenites" to describe inhabitants of the Moon.[4]
Comparable to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the book appears to be an introspective reductio of Wells' own eugenic and especially socialist ideals in favor of more nuanced versions.[5]
- ^ "Title: The First Men in the Moon".
- ^ McLean, S. (17 April 2009). The Early Fiction of H.G. Wells: Fantasies of Science. Springer. ISBN 9780230236639. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
- ^ H. G. Wells, "Preface", in Seven Famous Novels (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934, p. vii). Wells considered this category of work, which in his oeuvre also includes The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The Food of the Gods, and In the Days of the Comet, to be "a class of writing which includes the Golden Ass of Apuleius, the True Histories of Lucian, Peter Schlemil and the story of Frankenstein . . . they do not aim to project a serious possibility; they aim indeed only at the same amount of conviction as one gets in a good gripping dream. They have to hold the reader to the end by art and illusion and not by proof and argument, and the moment he closes the cover and reflects he wakes up to their impossibility" (ibid.).
- ^ "Le roman de la lune".
- ^ Pringle, David (1997). Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide. Carlton Books Ltd, p. 239