'How many things dismissed out of hand yesterday turn out to be true tomorrow?'

Written in the first half of the career of Jules Verne, the twin volumes of From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon tell the daring story of the Journey to the Moon aboard an American projectile blown into the skies by gunpowder. A powerfully innovative tale, it introduces such paradigm revolutions as escape velocity, weightlessness, "slingshot trajectories," and ocean splashdowns. Through its inimitable blend of science, humour, and verbal brilliance, it has fired generations of writers and astronauts into the space age.

This new edition, translated, annotated, and presented by David Coward and William Butcher, is the only one to appear as the author wished. It contains a wealth of discoveries, including Verne's sources and ideological and stylistic disagreements with his publisher.