From the Earth to the Moon [Paperback]

Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne’s prophetic novel of man’s race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen.

When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. But when Barbicane’s adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a “manned” flight, one man’s dream turns into an international space race.

A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination,From the Earth to the Moonis as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Verne’s timeless masterpieces20,000 Leagues Under the SeaandAround the World in Eighty Days.

Jules Verne was born into a family with seafaring tradition in Nantes, France, in 1828. At an early age he tried to run off and ship out as a cabin boy but was stopped and returned to his family. Verne was sent to Paris to study law, but once there, he quickly fell in love with the theater. He was soon writing plays and opera librettos, and his first play was produced in 1850. When he refused his father’s entreaties to return to Nantes and practice law, his allowance was cut off, and he was forced to make his living by selling stories and articles.

Verne combined his gift for exotic narratives with an interest the latest scientific discoveries. He spent long hours in the Paris libraries studying geology, astronomy, and engineering. Soon he was turning out imaginative stories such asFive Weeks in a Balloon(1863) andJourney to the Center of the Earth(1864), which were immensely popular all over the world. AfterFrom the Earth to the Moon(18l£3