All Around the Moon
1870
In 1865, Jules Verne imagined what no human had ever done: shoot three men to the moon in a giant aluminium bullet. All Around the Moon picks up where From the Earth to the Moon left off, as Barbican, M'Nicholl, and Ardan blast off from Florida in the Columbiad gun, thousands of tons of gunpowder propelling them toward an alien world. What follows is at once a scientific treatise and a grand adventure: the travelers weightlessly tumble around their cabin, mistake a meteor for the moon, argue over whether they've seen lunar cities, and grapple with the terrifying silence of space. Verne's genius lies in his precision. He calculated trajectories, debated whether Earth's atmosphere would crush them, and described lunar landscapes that wouldn't be photographed for a century. Yet this is no dry textbook. It's a swashbuckling ode to human hubris, to the ridiculous and magnificent idea of strapping yourself to an explosion and hoping for the best. Reading it now feels like discovering someone's diary from the future they were never supposed to see.
Editions
X-Ray
“How many things have been denied one day, only to become realities the next!””
— Jules Verne
“Well, I feel that we should always put a little art into what we do. It's better that way.””
— Jules Verne
“It is better for us to see the destination we wish to reach, than the point of departure””
— Jules Verne
“La distance est un vain mot, la distance n'existe pas!””
— Jules Verne
“Réfléchi! Est-ce que j’ai du temps à perdre? Je trouve l’occasion d’aller faire un tour dans la Lune, j’en profite, et voilà tout. Il me semble que cela ne mérite pas tant de réflexions.””
— Jules Verne
“Cheers for Edgar Poe!””
— Jules Verne
“Distance is but a relative expression, and must end by being reduced to zero.””
— Jules Verne
“What human being would ever have conceived the idea of such a journey? and, if such a person really existed, he must be an idiot, whom one would shut up in a lunatic ward, rather than within the walls of the projectile.””
— Jules Verne
“Vete al comedor, da una vuelta alrededor de la mesa mirado siempre su centro, y cuando hayas concluido el paseo circular, habrás dado una vuelta alrededor de ti mismo, puesto que la vista habrá recorrido todos los puntos del comedor. Pues bien, el comedor es el Cielo, la mesa es la Tierra y tú eres la Luna.””
— Jules Verne
