Comical History Of The States And Empires Of The Moon And Sun

First published, in a bowdlerised form, after the death of Cyrano de Bergerac, the two parts of the book are incomplete, probably because they were considered too heretical and too racy. It is probable that a third part, taking the story on to the stars, was intended, and may even have been written, but it has been lost completely. In the first part a man called Cyrano travels by rocket to the moon, where he discovers the Garden of Eden and encounters the ghosts of Socrates and of Domingo Gonsales (from The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwin), all of which gives Cyrano a chance to talk about how useless the idea of God is. In the second part Cyrano builds another flying machine, powered by blasts of hot air generated by focussed mirrors, which takes him to a sun spot, where he is put on trial for the crimes of humanity and meets Tomasso Campanella (author of the utopian novel The City of the Sun) with whom he talks about sex. Why its on the list: Arthur C. Clarke credits this with the first appearance of a rocket for interplanetary travel, and also the first appearance of something like a ramjet. Be that as it may, this was a tremendously influential work that continued to inspire writers for a century or more..