A Voyage to the Moon, Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) wrote this story at the end of his short but vigorous life. A Voyage to the Moon is a very early work of fiction. It predates Jules Verne and most other science fiction stories about extra terrestrial voyages. It's unfortunate that there is so little information about the story online. Wikipedia does not have any essay about it. It is available freely at Gutenberg.org.

Bergerac belongs on the short list of people as an early innovator of science fiction. Apparently, much of the story was lost due to the influence of his friend who released it. It is surmised that perhaps this was an effort to lessen the wrath of religious leaders of his era. There are many machines, including the ones that get him to the moon, and a kind of phonograph, which are described to some length in the story.

The story is about a man who travels to the moon. On the moon he discovers that those who live there look at the earth as a moon. In many ways it is an opposite of earth.

Initially, the traveler finds himself in the Garden of Eden. He is told to be careful of the Tree of Knowledge, as the fruit's skin causes ignorance, while the inner flesh gives knowledge. He momentarily forgets this information when he is hungry, and eats of the skin with some drips of juice from the inside. Thus, he is dumbed down (because of the rind), but not completely ignorant (because of the juice of the apple).

The people who live on the moon are like centaurs. They have no money. If they wish to purchase something, they must compose poems. He is taken out for a meal. How the meal is paid for is explained:

...the money of the country, and the charge we have been at here, hath been computed to amount to three couplets or six verses... (chapter 8)

The narrator goes through many of the common beliefs in science on earth, as it is based on Aristotle. The audience to these theories find it funny, yet are threatened by it.

The quaintness of my Sayings was already the entertainment of all Societies, and my Wit was so much esteemed that the Coucil was obliged to Publish an Edict, forbidding all people to believe I was endowed with reason. (chapter 10)

But, because of the foreignness of his beliefs, he is shut up in a cage like a bird (in fact, they believe him to be a bird). The society of ladies to which the cage belong find him quite amusing until they discover that he is a male.

There is an interesting kind of invention in Bergerac's imagination: a kind of speaker of books.

...he winds up that Machine with a great many Strings; then he turns the hand to the chapter which he desires to hear, and straight as from the mouth of a Man or a Musical Instrument, proceed all the distinct and different Sounds... (chapter 15)

It is a shame that most of this book is lost to censorship. Also, it's too bad that Bergerac had so short of a life. At the age of 36, he passed on a trip meant to improve his failing health.

I don't know of very many who point to Bergerac as a kind of founder or father of science fiction. But I suspect this novel did much for the genre to kindle other fantastic ideas. The annotator and translator of the book, Archibald Lovell, draws more than a few comparisons to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. For instance, the evolved horse-like creatures referred to as Houyhnhnms, are very much like the beings ruling on the moon. However, there are no humans aside from our narrator.