Journey to the Moon

’How many things dismissed out of hand yesterday turn out to be true tomorrow?’

Written in the first half of the career of Jules Verne, the twin volumes of From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon tell the daring story of the Journey to the Moon aboard an American projectile blown into the skies by gunpowder. A powerfully innovative tale, it introduces such paradigm revolutions as escape velocity, weightlessness, ＂slingshot trajectories,＂ and ocean splashdowns. Through its inimitable blend of science, humour, and verbal brilliance, it has fired generations of writers and astronauts into the space age.

This new edition, translated, annotated, and presented by David Coward and William Butcher, is the only one to appear as the author wished. It contains a wealth of discoveries, including Verne’s sources and ideological and stylistic disagreements with his publisher.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Jules Verne

David Coward writes widely on the history, literature, and culture of France. A regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, and national newspapers, he won the Scott-Moncrieff Prize for Translation in 1996. He is the author of A History of French Literature (2002), and for Oxford World’s Classics has translated and edited works by Dumas, Diderot, Sade, and Beaumarchais.

William Butcher has taught languages and mathematics, notably at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration and the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Jules Verne inédit: Les manuscrits déchiffrés (The Unexpurgated Jules Verne, 2015) and Jules Verne: The Biography (2006 and 2020). He has published many translations and editions, including Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas for Oxford World’s Classics.