tion>H. G. Wells
The First Men in the Moon
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664175861
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 — Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne
Chapter 2 — The First Making of Cavorite
Chapter 3 — The Building of the sphere
Chapter 5 — The Journey to the Moon
Chapter 6 — The Landing on the Moon
Chapter 7 — Sunrise on the Moon
Chapter 9 — Prospecting Begins
Chapter 10 — Lost Men in the Moon
Chapter 11 — The Mooncalf Pastures
Chapter 12 — The Selenite’s Face
Chapter 13 — Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions
Chapter 14 — Experiments in intercourse
Chapter 17 — The Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers
Chapter 19 — Mr. Bedford Alone
Chapter 20 — Mr. Bedford in Infinite Space
Chapter 21 — Mr. Bedford at Littlestone
Chapter 22 — The Astonishing Communication of Mr. Julius Wendigee
Chapter 23 — An Abstract of the Six Messages First Received from Mr. Cavor
Chapter 24 — The Natural History of the Selenites
Chapter 26 — The Last Message Cavor sent to the Earth
Chapter 1—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 any one. 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 writing a play was
