The First Men in the Moon - Softcover

Wells, H.G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425029778 ISBN 13: 9780425029770

Publisher: Berkley, 1967

Synopsis

The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon by the impecunious businessman Mr Bedford and the brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr Cavor. On arrival, Bedford and Cavor find the moon inhabited by a race of moon-folk the two call "Selenites." The novel can also be read as a critique of prevailing political opinions from the turn of the century, particularly of imperialism.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The First Men in the Moon (1901) is one of the most dazzling of Wells's 'scientific romances, ' and the last of the series which began with The Time Machine. Leaving their humdrum lives in Kent, Mr. Bedford and Mr. Cavor invade the moon and are captured by the ant-like Selenites. They are forced to confront their own littleness when viewed in a cosmic perspective, and the result is a highly entertaining satire on imperialism in particular and human frailty in general.

About the Author

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, England, on September 21, 1866. His father was a professional cricketer and sometime shopkeeper, his mother a former lady’s maid. Although "Bertie" left school at fourteen to become a draper’s apprentice (a life he detested), he later won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, where he studied with the famous Thomas Henry Huxley. He began to sell articles and short stories regularly in 1893. In 1895, his immediately successful novel rescued him from a life of penury on a schoolteacher’s salary. His other "scientific romances"—The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), The First Men in the Moon (1901), and The War in the Air (1908)—won him distinction as the father of science fiction.

Henry James saw in Wells the most gifted writer of the age, but Wells, having coined the phrase "the war that will end war" to describe World War I, became increasingly disillusioned and focused his attention on educating mankind with his bestselling Outline of History (1920) and his later utopian works. Living until 1946, Wells witnessed a world more terrible than any of his imaginative visions, and he bitterly observed: "Reality has taken a leaf from my book and set itself to supercede me."

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 1967
• ISBN 10: 0425029778
• ISBN 13: 9780425029770
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176