The Moon Voyage by Jules Verne

The Moon Voyage by Jules Verne

Jules Verne wrote his novel ‘De la Terre à la Lune’ in 1865. English language translations followed, with this version published in 1890. It contains the novel ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ and its sequel ‘Round the Moon’. The book is a hardback and bound in green cloth with gilt details. There is a decorative capital letter at the beginning of each chapter.

Jules Verne was a French writer who has been referred to as the ‘Father of Science Fiction’. ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ tells the story of a society of weapons enthusiasts who build a cannon to launch three people into space with a goal of landing on the Moon. ‘Round the Moon’ continues the story of the trip to the Moon.

The book was published long before humans set foot on the Moon, yet it contains some remarkable similarities to the Apollo missions. For example, the launch site in Verne’s novel was Florida, just like the actual launch site for the Apollo missions. Both Verne and NASA had three people to a spacecraft. The name of the cannon used to launch the astronauts in Verne’s novel was the Columbiad, which is very similar to the Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia. The characters returned to Earth by parachuting into the Pacific Ocean, just as the Apollo 11 crew did. The calculations mentioned in the book are surprisingly accurate, considering this was long before such missions were attempted or even considered. Although not entirely accurate, science fiction writing like this inspired Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s early theories of the possibility of spaceflight.

Verne’s books, along with those of H.G. Wells, inspired film maker Georges Méliès to direct the first ever science fiction film, ‘A Trip to the Moon’, made in 1902.