The First Men in the Moon

The First Men in the Moon by the English author H. G. Wells is a science fiction novel about a journey to the Moon by two Englishmen who discover that a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilisation of insect-like creatures ("Selenites") inhabits the lunar interior. The first-person narrator Mr. Bedford, a businessman, recounts his adventure with an eccentric scientist (Mr. Cavor), who has invented a gravity-blocking substance (cavorite) that the pair then use to construct a spherical spacecraft to reach the Moon, hoping to find valuable minerals. The work was originally serialised in The Strand Magazine (UK) and The Cosmopolitan (USA) from November 1900 to June 1901 and was published in hardcover book form in 1901. Wells called it one of his "fantastic stories". The novel is a major work in the long history of the Moon in science fiction, which dates back to classical antiquity and includes earlier encounters with lunar beings and civilisations, often satirical in nature. The scientific inspiration in large part would come from Jules Verne and his book From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, which used a cannon shot to launch a spacecraft with a human crew, and the sequel Around the Moon in 1869 about the lunar journey and return to Earth—both works use the word "Selenites" to describe possible inhabitants of the Moon. Underlying its scientific fantasy elements, the novel presents a dystopian satirical vision of an extremely regimented, intricately planned hierarchical society among the Selenites, divided into specialised roles in which individuals have strictly limited and predetermined lives for the good of the system. In the preface to the 1933 UK collected volume The Scientific Romances of H.G. Wells (published in different form as Seven Famous Novels in the US in 1934), Wells explained: "In The First Men in the Moon I tried an improvement on Jules Verne's shot, in order to look at mankind from a distance and burlesque the effects of specialisation". Comparable to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the book appears to be an introspective reductio of Wells' own eugenic and especially socialist ideals in favor of more nuanced versions. The First Men in the Moon has been critically praised for its combination of action and adventure with social satire and criticism, enhanced by fully developed characters in Bedford and Cavor, elements of humor, and its vivid descriptions of unearthly places and alien beings.