This science fiction novel follows a businessman and an inventor on a journey to the Moon. Beneath its surface, they discover a society of insect-like creatures called Selenites.
249 pages 4h 50m reading time
One of the earliest classic novels about space travel, and one of the best-known science fiction works by Wells.
Imagines a metal called Cavorite that blocks the pull of gravity, a made-up invention that lets the travelers float up into space.
Uses the Selenites, whose bodies are shaped from birth to fit a single job, to poke fun at human societies that train people for narrow roles and treat them as tools.
Helped make the idea of a material or device that cancels gravity a common way to reach space in later science fiction.
Has been adapted for the screen several times, most famously as a 1964 film with special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
Jules Verne objected
The older writer complained that Wells simply invented a metal instead of using real science to reach the Moon.
First came in parts
It first ran in monthly installments in The Strand Magazine in London, with drawings by Claude Shepperson.
Set near the author's home
The story begins in Lympne, a real Kent village close to Sandgate, where Wells lived while writing it.
A lost first film
The earliest movie version, a British silent film made in 1919, is now believed lost.
H. G. Wells 1901