The Man In The Moone

Author: Francis Godwin

Godwin was Bishop of Hereford, and this extraordinary story was discovered among his papers after his death. Read today it is hard to realise what an amazing work it was, incorporating scientific ideas that wouldn't become commonly known for many years, and at the same time having an unexpected effect upon scientific thought. It is the story of Domingo Gonsales, a luckless picaresque anti-hero, who, after various adventures, finds himself cast away on the island of St Helena. In an attempt to escape, he builds a carriage which he harnesses to a flock of wild geese in the hope that they will carry him away to the mainland. But, in keeping with the common ideas of the time, the geese migrate to the Moon and Gonsales is carried away with them. On the journey he experiences weightlessness, long before that became accepted scientific knowledge. On the Moon he discovers an entire society of tall, pale beings, where greater moral worth is reflected in greater height; because Gonsales is small and dark, therefore, he is soon cast out and returned to Earth. Why it's on the list: This was the first work of any sort to imagine a mechanical means of conveyance to the Moon. When it appeared, in 1638, John Wilkins had just published a work that represented the very latest scientific thinking about the Moon, and in the light of Godwin's fiction, Wilkins produced a revised edition of his own book in which he discussed for the first time the scientific feasibility of creating a means of travel to the Moon. The book also influenced generations of science fiction writers, up to and including Jules Verne, so it can be fairly claimed to be one of the most influential books in the entire history of science fiction.