Another of Jules Verne’s classics, this volume really consists of two books - From the Earth to the Moon, and its sequel Round the Moon. The two books may be read together (as the author may have intended), or separately as the reader may desire.
The action begins with the members of the Gun Club, who formulate the idea of sending a projectile to the Moon. The projectile (dubbed the Columbiad) is successfully launched, but it subsequently deviates from its intended course due to some unknown causes. As a result, it does not reach its destination, but is believed to be trapped by the lunar gravity in a circular orbit…
In effect, it is feared that the lunar projectile has become a satellite of the moon, and the fate of the travelers hangs in balance. It is here that the first part of the narrative ends, leaving the readers in suspense as to what is to follow.
The time given for the journey to the moon – four days – is remarkably close to the time taken by the Apollo Mission (in 1969) to deem this a remarkable work of prophesy. As in fact, so in fiction, the spacecraft carried a crew of three human beings. The other, and perhaps no less remarkable prediction, is the fact that public attention towards spaceflight largely depends on the human component, or the human angle.
It is in the details, such as where the author describes the installation of a telescope to monitor the progress of the spacecraft, in the shape of the spacecraft (conical), in the launch site (Florida), and in the use of lunar gravitation to propel the spacecraft that the author displays a mastery over his talent that has rarely been equalled since. This marriage of imagination to technology is why Jules Verne (along with H.G. Wells) is revered as the father of the scientific romance, which in later days has come to be known by the appellation of science fiction.
Jules Verne would not have gained worldwide renown as an author were it just for his feats of imagination and his technical prowess. The core of the novel is the interaction between the three space travelers - Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan. It is their audacity and it is their resourcefulness that provides the human drama, and lends the novel that extra edge.