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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN num: 9780141441085
ISBN number: 0141441089
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: September 27, 2005
Publishing house: Penguin Classics
Sale Popularity Level: 236440
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Product Description:
When penniless businessman Mr. Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr. Cavor, an absentminded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford that the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey to the moon. With Bedford motivated by money, and Cavor by the desire for knowledge, the two embark on the expedition. But neither are prepared for what they find—a world of freezing nights, boiling days, and sinister alien life, in which they may be trapped forever.
-First time in Penguin Classics
-Includes a newly established text, a full biographical essay on Wells, suggestions for further reading, and detailed notes
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Rated by buyers 
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The book is over a hundred years old, so you'll forgive a few spoilers. There are actually two related stories here:
First, there's Mr. Bedford, who has no scientific training and mooches a ride to the moon with Mr. Cavor, where he plots all his business ideas and bludgeons scores of moon people to death with a solid gold crowbar. He goes home, a stupid little kid accidentally flies off in the Cavorite sphere, and that's that. Good times. Convenient how he, against the extremely long odds mentioned by the narrator, not only gets back to earth, but back to England.
Next, there's Mr. Cavor, who gets left on the moon more or less out of necessity, and perhaps by his own choice. The Selenites track him down, and begin to communicate with him. How inconsiderate of Mr. Cavor to make them all learn English instead of him learning their language, especially since they only have one language globally. Here we get into the book's social commentary, which Wells was always big on but which posterity has forgotten in favor of his science fiction elements. Is it truly by accident that Cavor mentions that he's the only way humans can get back to the moon, and that he fails to send earth his formula for Cavorite? Or is he conveniently trying to keep the indigenous peoples from being trampled down by the earth's world powers? Plus we have the Selenites' interesting social structure, like communism, to the extreme.
Reading this book for the very first time in the twenty-first century, one's thoughts go like this: "Hey, Wells made some pretty decent predictions about helium and the moon...well, except for the moon plants...and the giant moon cows...and the moon ant people. Never mind."
Wells was a great writer, though, and this story is engaging and, early on, humorous. Seems like he was trying to outdo Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and its sequel. The First Men in the Moon is over the top in this day and age, maybe, but in 1900 nobody knew any better. Well done, sir.
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Mr Bedford, a recently bankrupt Victorian gentleman has retired to the English countryside to recover his spirit and write a play. He meets Dr Cavor, an eccentric, quaintly comical scientific genius researching the preparation of a compound he calls "Cavorite" that will be opaque to all radiation including gravity. When a laboratory error results in the wildly successful early completion of the Cavorite project, Bedord and Cavor use it to create a sphere that is capable of travel to the moon.
The science in HG Wells' "First Men in the Moon" is now known to be wildly off the mark - anti-gravity; a lunar atmosphere that freezes during the frigid lunar night and sublimates into a rarified but breathable air during the warmer day; an extraordinarily fecund flora that seeds itself, germinates, grows, blooms and completes its life cycle during the brief sunlight hours; and a civilized but strictly class structured lunar insect-like people living under the moon's surface that Bedord and Cavor called "Selenites".
Despite its failings in the light of current scientific knowledge, "First Men in the Moon" is still an enjoyable adventure written in typical late Victorian style that gives us an early taste of 20th century science fiction space opera to follow. Just as he did in his better known novel "The Time Machine", Wells successfully uses his protagonists, Bedord and Cavor, as tools to discuss, satirize and critique deeply and dearly held British notions of class and imperialism.
Suspending your belief and accepting the science in terms of what was known and understood at the turn of the century will allow you to whisk yourself away on a space-faring adventure for an enlightening, enjoyable few hours. Recommended.
Paul Weiss
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Bob Eggleton's wonderful illustrations are in the Starblaze Edition of The First Men in the Moon. Collectors of science fiction art and of Eggleton will want to buy this edition.
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This is by far my favorite HG Wells. It's the very first one I read and the one I keep rereading. I've read it three times now and have enjoyed it every time. This is science fiction at its best, with convincing descriptions of the lunar landscape and inhabitants, as well as human interest and complex character development.
Like all science fiction, it requires suspension of disbelief to appreciate fully. Don't expect Wells to write like a scientist, and you'll be fine.
I love this book! Oh, and if it helps inform, I have a master's degree in physics.
Rated by buyers 
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It is perhaps a cliché to suggest that H.G. Wells was a man with an imagination ahead of his time. Wells was writing in the late Victorian era but was still able to visualise future societies and even inventions that yesterday have reasonable credibility. He was a science fiction writer of great clarity. Although Wells is justifiably better known for "The Time Machine" and "War of the Worlds", "The First Men in the Moon" is still a worthy work.
Despite publishing this novel in 1901, Wells was aware of the issues of lunar gravity and the consequences of this to those on the moon. He knew that lunar gravity was only one sixth of that on earth. However, he also wrote of the moon as having an atmosphere. But most writers of the time would have assumed this too. They would also have reasonably assumed the real possibility of life on the moon.
"The First Men in the Moon" tells the story of Professor Cavor and his discovery of a material that was opaque to gravity. He was befriended by Bedford who is the narrator of the tale. Together, the two build a sphere that transports them to the lunar surface where they discover a bizarre world of "Selenites" that primarily live beneath the ground.
Understandably, both men a fearful yet curious about this alien environment. However, it is Cavor who is captured by the moon's inhabitants and is unable to flee back to Earth. Bedford survives to tell of their travels. Yet the story is completed by the transmission of radio messages from Cavor back from the moon. And remember that this was written by a man with only a knowledge of the world at the turn of the 19th Century!
"The First Men in the Moon" is not one of Wells's great works. It is, however, part of his large body of work that continues to capture a modern audience.
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