The First Men in the Moon

The First Men in the Moon

By H. G. Wells.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Epigraph
4. The First Men in the Moon
   1. I: Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne
   2. II: The First Making of Cavorite
   3. III: The Building of the Sphere
   4. IV: Inside the Sphere
   5. V: The Journey to the Moon
   6. VI: The Landing on the Moon
   7. VII: Sunrise on the Moon
   8. VIII: A Lunar Morning
   9. IX: Prospecting Begins
   10. X: Lost Men in the Moon
   11. XI: The Mooncalf Pastures
   12. XII: The Selenite’s Face
   13. XIII: Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions
   14. XIV: Experiments in Intercourse
   15. XV: The Giddy Bridge
   16. XVI: Points of View
   17. XVII: The Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers
   18. XVIII: In the Sunlight
   19. XIX: Mr. Bedford Alone
   20. XX: Mr. Bedford in Infinite Space
   21. XXI: Mr. Bedford at Littlestone
   22. XXII: The Astonishing Communication of Mr. Julius Wendigee
   23. XXIII: An Abstract of the Six Messages First Received from Mr. Cavor
   24. XXIV: The Natural History of the Selenites
   25. XXV: The Grand Lunar
   26. XXVI: The Last Message Cavor Sent to the Earth
5. Endnotes
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

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“Three thousand stadia from the earth to the moon.⁠ ⁠… Marvel not, my comrade, if I appear talking to you on super-terrestrial and aerial topics. The long and the short of the matter is that I am running over the order of a Journey I have lately made.”

Lucian’s Icaromenippus

The First Men in the Moon

I

Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne

As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of astonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr. Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have been anyone. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had gone to Lympne because I had imagined it the most uneventful place in the world. “Here, at any rate,” said I, “I shall find peace and a chance to work!”

And this book is the sequel. So utterly at variance is Destiny with all the little plans of men.

I may perhaps mention here that very recently I had come an ugly cropper in certain business enterprises. Sitting now surrounded by all the circumstances of wealth, there is a luxury in admitting my extremity. I can admit, even, that to a certain extent my disasters were conceivably of my own making. It may be there are directions in which I have some capacity, but the conduct of business operations is not among these. But in those days I was young, and my youth among other objectionable forms took that of a pride in my capacity for affairs. I am young still in years, but the things that have happened to me have rubbed something of the youth from my mind. Whether they have brought any wisdom to light below it is a more doubtful matter.

It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the speculations that landed me at Lympne, in Kent. Nowadays even about business transactions there is a strong spice of adventure. I took risks. In these things there is invariably a certain amount of give and take, and it fell to me finally to do the giving. Reluctantly enough. Even when I had got out of everything, one cantankerous creditor saw fit to be malignant. Perhaps you have met that flaming sense of outraged virtue, or perhaps you have only felt it. He ran me hard. It seemed to me, at last, that there was nothing for it but to write a play, unless I wanted to drudge for my living as a clerk. I have a certain imagination, and luxurious tastes, and I meant to make a vigorous fight for it before that fate overtook me. In addition to my belief in my powers as a business man, I had always in those days had an idea that I was equal to writing a very good play. It is not, I believe, a very uncommon persuasion. I knew there is nothing a man can do outside legitimate business transactions that has such opulent possibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I had, indeed, got into the habit of regarding this unwritten drama as a convenient little reserve put by for a rainy day. That rainy day had come and I set to work.

I soon discovered that