The first people on the moon

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Publisher's cover of the German first edition 1905, Bruns Minden

The first people on the moon is a novel by the British writer Herbert George Wells . The book was first published in 1901 under the title The First Men in the Moon . In 1905 Bruns Verlag published the first German publication under the title The First People in the Moon .

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During a stay in the country, the unsuccessful businessman and playwright Bedford meets the headstrong scientist Cavor . In his house, Cavor developed a new material that was not affected by gravity ; he gives it the name cavorite . Cavor and Bedford, the first-person narrator of the novel, build a large hollow sphere in Cavor's house in which they fly to the moon.

When they reach the moon, it is night there. There is snow on the surface of the moon. From inside the globe, travelers watch the sun rise. After sunrise, the snow melts and bushes and large mushrooms spring up from the ground. As they leave the sphere and explore the landscape, they get lost.

In search of the bullet, they come across a herd of moon cows guarded by ant-like moon people. The moon people are referred to as Selenites by Cavor and Bedford (after the Greek moon goddess Selene ). Hungry, Cavor and Bedford eat mushrooms that induce intoxication . While intoxicated, they encounter a group of six Selenites, who take them prisoner and carry them into the interior of the moon. Bedford passes out.

When Bedford wakes up, he is in a small room with Cavor. After the Selenites have brought their captives food, they lead them through caves with strange machines. Blue glowing streams flow on the floor to provide light. When they reach a dark abyss, the Selenites want to force their prisoners to step onto a bridge that leads into the dark. Bedford and Cavor refuse to go on. In the ensuing fight, Bedford kills three Selenites. Bedford and Cavor flee.

Through a hole in the ceiling they get into a cave, on the floor of which glowing mushrooms grow. Bored, Cavor throws mushrooms through the hole, thereby bringing the selenites on their trail. Cavor and Bedford climb through a shaft into a cave in which the Selenites slaughter the moon cows. While they are walking through the cave, they are attacked by the Selenites. When Bedford fights back, the attackers flee. Cavor and Bedford return to the surface of the moon via a huge spiral staircase .

There they part in search of the sphere. Bedford finds the bullet. He returns to the agreed meeting point to pick up Cavor. He finds a message from Cavors in which he writes that he has injured himself and is being persecuted by the Selenites.

As the sun goes down, it starts to snow. Bedford is forced to leave Cavor with a heavy heart. Bedford fights his way to the ball through an increasingly violent snowstorm; with the last of his strength he climbs into the ball and leaves the moon.

Bedford lands on a sandbar near the English seaside resort of Littleton. In an unobserved moment a curious boy climbs into the ball and flies away with it through a chain of unfortunate circumstances, so that Bedford cannot fly to the moon.

A short time later, a Dutch scientist received radio communications from the moon. Cavor says that he fell into the hands of the Selenites again. He was carried off by them into the interior of the moon. There he can move freely, he also describes the life of the Selenites. Eventually he is brought to the ruler of the Selenites, the Great Lunar . He asks Cavor about the habits of people on earth. When he reports about the wars on earth and that people go into battle cheering, the Great Lunar can hardly believe it.

After meeting the Great Lunar , Cavor's communications are increasingly obscured by disturbances apparently coming from the moon. In a final message, he hastily tries to pass on the formula for Cavorit. However, the transmission is interrupted and not resumed.

The ultimate fate of Cavor remains open.

Résumé

The First People on the Moon is one of the lesser known novels by Herbert George Wells. The protagonists Cavor and Bedford are not portrayed as friends, they even have arguments. Cavor is too naive about the nature of the Selenites, which also causes their downfall. Bedford, on the other hand, is only concerned with his material advantage. He brings two gold bars that he found in the caves back to earth. It's a pure, open-ended science fiction novel that doesn't make it clear what happened to Cavor.

The novel was made into a film several times. In 1902 the French short film Le voyage dans la lune was released , which is loosely based on motifs from The First People on the Moon and Jules Verne's From Earth to the Moon . The 1964 film The First Journey to the Moon , shot with sound and color, can only be considered a real film adaptation . With the English actors Lionel Jeffries as “Cavor” and Edward Judd as “Bedford”, a female astronaut was added to the script by Nigel Kneale and Jan Read and a smug framework was knitted around Wells' story.

expenditure

  • HG Wells : The first people on the moon. Roman (Original title: The First Men in the Moon ). German by Werner von Grünau . Complete edition. dtv (Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag), Munich 1996, 319 pages, ISBN 3-423-12237-4

See also

Web links

Wikisource: The First Men in the Moon  - Sources and full texts (English)