Around the Moon

Infobox Book |
name = Around the Moon
title_orig = Autour de la Lune
translator = Louis Mercier & Eleanor E. King (1873); Edward Roth (1874); Thomas H. Linklater (1877); I. O. Evans (1959), Jacqueline and Robert Baldick (1970), Harold Salemson (1970)


image_caption =
author = Jules Verne
illustrator = Émile-Antoine Bayard and Alphonse-Marie de Neuville
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series = The Extraordinary Voyages #7
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Pierre-Jules Hetzel
english_pub_date = 1873
release_date = 1870
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
followed_by = A Floating City

"Around the Moon" ( _fr. Autour de la Lune), Jules Verne's sequel to "From the Earth to the Moon", is a science fiction novel continuing the trip to the moon which left the reader in suspense after the previous novel. It was later combined with "From the Earth to the Moon" to create "A Trip to the Moon and Around It".

Plot summary

After being fired out of the giant Columbiad, the bullet-shaped projectile along with its three passengers, Barbicane, Nicholl and Michel Ardan, begins the five-day trip to the moon. A few minutes into the journey, a small, bright meteor passes within a few hundred yards of them, but luckily does not collide with the projectile. The meteor had been captured by the Earth's gravity and had become a second moon. It is then discovered by the three astronauts that the gravitational force of this satellite has caused the projectile to deviate from its course, sending it into orbit around the moon, as Barbicane, Ardan and Nicholl begin geographical observations with opera glasses. The projectile then dips over the northern hemisphere of the moon, into the darkness of its shadow. It is plunged into extreme cold, before emerging into the light and heat again. They are now approaching the southern hemisphere. From the safety of their projectile, they gain spectacular views of Tycho, one of the greatest of all craters on the moon. The question is of whether or not the moon is inhabited is raised. They quickly conclude that the moon is not currently habitable, but may have once been home to creatures much like ourselves. But then the projectile begins to move slowly away from the moon, towards the 'dead point' (the place of which the gravitational attraction of the moon and earth becomes equal). Michel Ardan then hits upon the idea of using the rockets fixed to the bottom of the projectile, which they were originally going to use to deaden the shock of landing, to encourage a fall on the moon. And so, when the projectile reaches the point of neutral attraction, the rockets are fired, but it is too late. The projectile begins a fall onto the earth from 160,000 miles up, and it is to strike the earth at a speed of 115,200 miles per hour, the same speed at which it left the mouth of the Columbiad. Four days later, the crew of a US Navy vessel "Susquehanna" spots a bright meteor fall from the sky into the sea. This turns out to be the returning projectile, and the three men inside are then found and rescued.

References

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External links

* — This is the original translation of Mercier and King published by Sampson Low et al in 1873 and deletes about 20% of the original French text, along with numerous other errors.
* [http://jv.gilead.org.il/pg/round/ "Round the Moon"] — Gut. text #83 in HTML format.
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/sherwood/R-II-d.htm "Round the Moon"] — This is the original translation of Lewis Page Mercier and Eleanor E. King published by Sampson Low et al. in 1873, revised and reconstituted by Christian Sánchez and Norman Wolcott. The parts Mercier and King left out are shown in red type.
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12901 Project Gutenberg's "The Moon Voyage"] — This the version of both parts of "Earth to the Moon" and "Round the Moon" as published by Ward Lock in London in 1877. The translation is more complete than the Mercier version, but still has flaws, referring to the space capsule as a "bullet".
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16457 Project Gutenberg's "All Around the Moon"] — This is the translation of Edward Roth first published in 1876 by King and Baird, Philadelphia. This translation has been vilified by Verne scholars for the large amount of additional non-Verne material included. However the book does contain the first printed corrected equation of motion for moon travel and also the first correct printed derivation of the formula for the escape velocity for a space capsule to leave the earth for the moon.
* [http://www.sil.si.edu/imagegalaxy/imageGalaxy_MoreImages.cfm?book_id=SIL28-090 Gallery of images] , from the 1874 edition, from the Smithsonian Institution