The First Men in the Moon.

London: George Newnes Limited. 1901. 8vo. Publisher's dark blue cloth, upper board and spine lettered in gilt with gilt central floral vignette and crescent moon, respectively, black endpapers; pp. vii, [1 (blank)], 342; illustrated frontispiece and a further 11 plates by Claude Shepperson; some pushing to spine ends; a few light creases to corners, plate facing p. 101 slightly loose; a very good copy.First edition, first issue in book form of the first book by H. G. Wells to be adapted as a film (1919).C. S. Lewis - who took The First Men in the Moon as a model for his Out of the Silent Planet (1938) - called Wells's novel 'the best of the sort I have read'. In it, 'a scientist and a young adventurer, working in secret in a remote English country setting, build a spherical spaceship out of gravity-repellent material and travel to the moon, where, captured by insectlike inhabitants who dwell beneath its inhospitable surface, they inadvertently reveal the brutality of the human race and are brought before the "Grand Lunar" for judgment' (Zaleski and Zaleski, The Fellowship (2015), p. 253). The work was first published serially in the Strand Magazine - founded by George Newnes, publisher of this edition - between December 1900 and August 1901.Wells 18.…