4 h 45 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the moon’s people find our view of the universe as laughable as we find theirs?
An argument among friends sends a proud, curious traveller named Cyrano toward the moon. He insists it is a world like ours, even when his friends laugh. Bottles of dew and a machine packed with fireworks turn his claim into a comic adventure. In Cyrano de Bergerac’s A Voyage to the Moon, the urge to prove a point carries him beyond familiar ground.
On the moon, strange customs throw earthly habits into sharp relief. The learned Demon of Socrates helps Cyrano weigh the beliefs of one world against another. Beneath the jokes, this lively tale questions human certainty, the teachings of the Church and the schools, and our assumption that everything revolves around us. What can we really claim to know?
What you’ll discover
- An argument takes flight Follow a traveller who answers his friends’ laughter with a daring experiment.
- Dew bottles and rockets Enjoy homemade flying machines that give this philosophical journey its wild comic energy.
- Earth seen from elsewhere Meet moon people who turn humanity’s confident picture of the universe upside down.
- A curious lunar guide Join the Demon of Socrates in weighing earthly beliefs against lunar ones.
- A voice full of mischief Spend time with a boastful, questioning narrator who never loses his sense of fun.
Who will love it
You will love it if you enjoy early science fiction, witty satire, big ideas about the stars and atoms, and inventive travellers' tales in the spirit of Gulliver.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A moonlit joke becomes a plan to fly
- A governor and a guest argue about many worlds
- Fireworks lift him and a garden receives him
- Cast out, he becomes a showman's beast
- A court decides whether he is a man
- Lunar customs mirror the oddities of Earth
- What the voyage is really about
Who’s who
- The narratorA bold thinker who believes the Moon is a world and builds one machine after another to prove it.
- The Viceroy of New FranceThe governor in Canada who hears the traveller's story and tests his ideas about the Sun and the Earth.
- The Demon of SocratesA spirit born in the Sun who guides the narrator on the Moon and speaks up for him at court.
- The little SpaniardA man from Castile who reached the Moon with birds and shares the narrator's lodging and his love of free thought.
- The landlord's sonA witty young host on the Moon who loves arguments and enjoys testing the narrator's faith.
- ElijahThe prophet who lives in the lunar garden and teaches the narrator before an unlucky joke angers him.
- The Queen's maidA kind lady of the court who explains the Moon's customs and hopes to follow the narrator to Earth.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Eine Reise zum Mond in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Eine Reise zum Mond
by Cyrano de Bergerac · 1657
A man straps bottles of dew to his body and lets the Sun lift him toward the Moon.
Challenging2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What if the Moon were a world, and its people laughed at us as we laugh at them? Cyrano de Bergerac begins on a moonlit road near Paris, where one joke sends a man into the sky.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A moonlit joke becomes a plan to fly
The book opens on a road near Paris. A group of friends, coming home from a dinner at a country house, trade silly guesses about the full Moon. One says it is a window in Heaven, another says it is the Sun in his nightcap. The narrator says it is a world like ours, and everyone laughs.
The laughter only makes the idea grow. At home he finds a book by Cardanus lying open on his table, telling of two old men who came from the Moon. He takes this as a sign and thinks of Prometheus, who climbed to Heaven for fire. Why should he not be as bold?
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What is A Voyage to the Moon about?
It follows a French narrator who tries several flying machines until he reaches the Moon. There he meets strange people, a spirit and a Spaniard, and is tried by a court. Along the way the book debates worlds, atoms and belief.
Who is the Demon of Socrates in the book?
He is a spirit who says he was born in the Sun and once guided Socrates and other great men. On the Moon he helps the narrator, speaks for him at court, and shares his knowledge of nature and the senses.
How do people on the Moon eat and pay for things?
They live on vapours that cooks trap in vessels and release, so the nose does the work of the mouth. Money is verse. Sworn poets at a mint judge poems, and a few couplets can pay for a meal.
The author
Cyrano de Bergerac
1619–1655 · French novelist and playwright
Cyrano de Bergerac was a French novelist and dramatist born in Paris in 1619. He served as a soldier before pursuing writing. He wrote plays and accounts of imaginary voyages. His Voyage to the Moon was published after his death, in 1657. He died in Sannois, near Paris, in 1655.
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