Around the Moon

Around the Moon is a novel written by Jules Verne, a French author, and was first published in 1870. Moreover, it serves as the continuation or sequel to the book From the Earth to the Moon, which was published in 1865.

Around the Moon is considered one of the earliest works of science fiction. It is remarkable to observe how Verne predicts a trip to the moon almost a century before it occurred. However, instead of using a rocket, Verne employs a cannon in his novel.

Recommended for: Beginner to Intermediate readers interested in science fiction and stories about space exploration.

You will:

Take an imaginative journey around the moon as described through Jules Verne’s science fiction novel.
Learn about speculative theories of space travel and lunar conditions from the 19th century perspective.
Experience adventure and discovery through observations of the moon’s terrain in a historically influential work of early hard science fiction.

Plot

Barbicane, along with his two companions, Nicholl and Ardan, embarks on a journey aboard a powerful space pistol. They are launched from Earth towards the moon, accompanied by two dogs. Remarkably, the three astronauts managed to survive the launch.

Shortly after takeoff, they ponder the reason behind their inability to hear the blast. This detail leads them to the conclusion that the sound could not reach them because they were already traveling at supersonic speed from the moment of takeoff.

During the trip, one of the dogs died because he got very injured. Then, the astronauts take it out of their space capsule through a hatch. Over time, they discover that the corpse of the dog follows them with the same course and speed. Besides, they describe the moment in which they manage to land on the moon and how they will communicate with their inhabitants. After a supersaturation of the air inside the capsule due to a too open valve, the passengers become intoxicated.

Meanwhile, they discover that they will not land on the moon. Because at the beginning of the trip their projectile meets an asteroid. And this makes them deviate from their trajectory. After a flight around the moon orbit, they return to the earth. Finally, the projectile crashes in the Pacific Ocean. And a United States Navy vessel rescued the three astronauts.

Adaptations

In 1958, director Byron Haskin released the film adaptation of Jules Verne’s novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, titled From the Earth to the Moon. The film drew inspiration from Verne’s science fiction works about launching a projectile carrying passengers around and to the moon, predating actual space travel but capturing the imagination about the possibilities of lunar exploration.

Licensing

Jules Verne. Around the Moon. Edition published in 1873. Translated from french by Lewis Page Mercier & Eleanor E. King. Originally published in 1870. This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author and the translators died at least 100 years ago. Text from Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Around_the_Moon
This digital edition is provided by Ebooks-net in 2024 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. The full text of the license is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.