M Jules Verne

Around the Moon M Jules Verne

Publisher Marketing: Around the Moon (French: Autour de la Lune, 1870), Jules Verne's sequel to From the Earth to the Moon, is a science fiction novel continuing the trip to the moon which left the reader in suspense after the previous novel. It was later combined with From the Earth to the Moon to create A Trip to the Moon and Around It. Plot Having been fired out of the giant Columbiad space gun, the Baltimore Gun Club's bullet-shaped projectile, along with its three passengers, Barbicane, Nicholl and Michel Ardan, begins the five-day trip to the moon. A few minutes into the journey, a small, bright asteroid passes within a few hundred yards of them, but luckily does not collide with the projectile. The asteroid had been captured by the Earth's gravity and had become a second moon. An illustration from Jules Verne's novel "Around the Moon" drawn by Emile-Antoine Bayard and Alphonse de Neuville, September 16, 1872 The three travelers undergo a series of adventures and misadventures during the rest of the journey, including disposing of the body of a dog out a window, suffering intoxication by gases, and making calculations leading them, briefly, to believe that they are to fall back to Earth. During the latter part of the voyage, it becomes apparent that the gravitational force of their earlier encounter with the asteroid has caused the projectile to deviate from its course. The projectile enters lunar orbit, rather than landing on the moon as originally planned. Barbicane, Ardan and Nicholl begin geographical observations with opera glasses. The projectile then dips over the northern hemisphere of the moon, into the darkness of its shadow. It is plunged into extreme cold, before emerging into the light and heat again. They then begin to approach the moon's southern hemisphere. From the safety of their projectile, they gain spectacular views of Tycho, one of the greatest of all craters on the moon. The three men discuss the possibility of life on the moon, and conclude that it is barren. The projectile begins to move away from the moon, towards the 'dead point' (the place at which the gravitational attraction of the moon and Earth becomes equal). Michel Ardan hits upon the idea of using the rockets fixed to the bottom of the projectile (which they were originally going to use to deaden the shock of landing) to propel the projectile towards the moon and hopefully cause it to fall onto it, thereby achieving their mission. When the projectile reaches the point of neutral attraction, the rockets are fired, but it is too late. The projectile begins a fall onto the Earth from a distance of 160,000 miles, and it is to strike the Earth at a speed of 115,200 miles per hour, the same speed at which it left the mouth of the Columbiad. All hope seems lost for Barbicane, Nicholl and Ardan. Four days later, the crew of a US Navy vessel USS Susquehanna spots a bright meteor fall from the sky into the sea. This turns out to be the returning projectile, and the three men inside are found to be alive and are rescued. They are treated to lavish homecoming celebrations as the first people to leave Earth." Contributor Bio:  Ballin, M G-Ph Honore de Balzac, ne Honore Balzac a Tours le 20 mai 1799 (1er prairial an VII du calendrier republicain), et mort a Paris le 18 aout 1850 (a 51ans), est un ecrivain francais. Romancier, dramaturge, critique litteraire, critique d'art, essayiste, journaliste et imprimeur, il a laisse l'une des plus imposantes uvres romanesques de la litterature francaise, avec plus de quatre-vingt-dix romans et nouvelles parus de 1829 a 1855, reunis sous le titre La Comedie humaine. A cela s'ajoutent Les Cent Contes drolatiques, ainsi que des romans de jeunesse publies sous des pseudonymes et quelque vingt-cinq uvres ebauchees. Il est un maitre du roman francais, dont il a aborde plusieurs genres, du roman philosophique avec Le Chef-d' uvre inconnu au roman fantastique avec La Peau de chagrin ou encore au roman poetique avec Le Lys dans la vallee. Il a surtout excelle dans la veine du realisme, avec notamment Le Pere Goriot et Eugenie Grandet, mais il s'agit d'un realisme visionnaire, que transcende la puissance de son imagination creatrice. Comme il l'explique dans son Avant-Propos a La Comedie humaine, il a pour projet d'identifier les Especes sociales de son epoque, tout comme Buffon avait identifie les especes zoologiques. Ayant decouvert par ses lectures de Walter Scott que le roman pouvait atteindre a une valeur philosophique, il veut explorer les differentes classes sociales et les individus qui les composent, afin d'ecrire l'histoire oubliee par tant d'historiens, celle des m urs et faire concurrence a l'etat civil. L'auteur decrit la montee du capitalisme et l'absorption par la bourgeoisie d'une noblesse incapable de s'adapter aux realites nouvelles. Interesse par les etres qui ont un destin, il cree des personnages plus grands que nature, au point qu'on a pu dire que, dans ses romans, chacun, meme les portieres, a du genie. Ses opinions politiques sont ambigues: s'il affiche des convictions legitimistes en pleine Monarchie de Juillet, il s'est auparavant declare liberal, et defendra les ouvriers en 1840 et en 1848, meme s'il ne leur accorde aucune place dans ses romans. Tout en professant des idees conservatrices, il a produit une uvre admiree par Marx et Engels, et qui invite par certains aspects a l'anarchisme et a la revolte.