4 h 45 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 45 minPaperback · 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 enjoy this if you like inventive travel tales, witty arguments about science and belief, early science fiction, and narrators who poke fun at their own world.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A dare at a dinner party launches the voyage
- Fireworks carry him to a garden in the sky
- He is mistaken for an animal and put on show
- A caged man is tried for saying the Moon is a world
- A philosophical dinner turns custom upside down
- The Moon mocks pride and tests the rule of authority
- Matter, faith, and the thinking behind the jokes
- A mirror world, told with wit and a straight face
Who’s who
- The narratorA bold Frenchman who insists the moon is a world, and who tries one machine after another to reach it.
- The Demon of SocratesA spirit from the Sun who guides and defends the narrator, taking on new bodies to help him.
- The little SpaniardA man from Castile who flew to the Moon with birds, and who argues for a vacuum and one single matter.
- ElijahThe prophet who lives in the Earthly Paradise on the Moon and drives the narrator out for mocking holy things.
- The Viceroy of New FranceThe governor in Canada who tests the narrator's ideas about the Sun and the infinite universe.
- The landlord's sonA witty young man on the Moon who challenges miracles and argues for the power of imagination to heal.
- The Queen's maidA kind lady of the court who explains lunar wars and hopes to follow the narrator to his world.
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- Large print hardcover
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Les États et Empires de la Lune
by Cyrano de Bergerac · 1657
A Frenchman ties bottles of dew to his body and rises toward the Moon, where he is caged as a bird.
Challenging2–5 hours to readfrançais
Excellent
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In short
Picture a clear night near Paris. A group of friends walks home from a dinner, staring at the full moon.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A dare at a dinner party launches the voyage
The book opens with a joke on a moonlit road. The narrator walks home from Clamard, near Paris, with friends who guess what the moon might be. One says it is a dormer window in Heaven. Another says it is the pan where Diana smooths the ribbons of Apollo.
The narrator says the moon is a world like ours, and that our world serves it as a moon in turn. His friends burst out laughing. Their mockery makes the idea grow in him. At home he finds a book open on his table that he did not put there. It tells of two old men who say they come from the Moon. He takes this chain of accidents as a sign.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1657
- Language
- français
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien de. A Voyage to the Moon. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-voyage-to-the-moon.
Cyrano de Bergerac, S. de. (2026). A voyage to the moon. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-voyage-to-the-moon (Original work published 1657)
Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien de. A Voyage to the Moon. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-voyage-to-the-moon.
@book{cyrano2026voyage,
author = {Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien de},
title = {A Voyage to the Moon},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-voyage-to-the-moon},
note = {First published 1657}
}
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What is A Voyage to the Moon about?
A Frenchman who believes the moon is a world builds flying machines to reach it. On the Moon he meets a prophet, a spirit, and a Spanish traveler, and he is tried for his claims while debating science and faith.
Who is the Demon of Socrates in the book?
He is a spirit born in the Sun who says he once guided Socrates, Cato, and Brutus. He befriends the narrator on the Moon, takes on different bodies, and helps him through caging, trial, and philosophical dinners.
How do people eat and pay on the Moon?
They live on vapors from cooked food, trapped in vessels and released one after another, and they pay their bills in verse. Poems are judged at a mint by sworn poets, so a few couplets can cover a night at an inn.
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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