A Voyage to the Moon

A Seventeenth-Century Lunar Voyage of Satire, Freethought, and Early Science FictionBy Cyrano de Bergerac
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Length4h 7m

About this audiobook

Cyrano de Bergerac's *A Voyage to the Moon* is a witty, imaginative narrative in which the terrestrial traveler Dyrcona reaches the moon and encounters unfamiliar societies, creatures, and systems of thought. Combining comic adventure, learned speculation, philosophical dialogue, and extravagant invention, the work turns the conventions of travel literature toward satire. Written in the intellectual climate of seventeenth-century France, it draws on contemporary astronomy and the new mechanical philosophy while questioning religious orthodoxy, human exceptionalism, and the assumed universality of European customs. Its playful impossibilities therefore serve a serious critical purpose: estrangement becomes a means of examining earthly institutions. Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) was a French soldier, poet, dramatist, and freethinking man of letters whose reputation has often been overshadowed by the later stage character inspired by his name. Associated with libertine intellectual culture and influenced by debates surrounding Copernican astronomy, atomism, and the philosophy of Pierre Gassendi, Cyrano used fiction to explore ideas that could be dangerous when stated directly. Published posthumously in 1657, the book reflects both his literary ingenuity and his resistance to conventional authority. This volume merits the attention of readers interested in the origins of science fiction, early modern intellectual history, and the relationship between fantasy and social criticism. Its energetic prose, comic reversals, and provocative speculations remain entertaining, while its challenge to anthropocentric and dogmatic thinking gives the narrative enduring philosophical force. Readers will find in it not merely an early space voyage, but a sophisticated experiment in making the familiar strange.

Audiobook details

Rating★★★★ 3.7 (1.8K)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon, StoryGraph
GenreScience Fiction, Humor
Length4 hrs 7 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 25, 2023
LanguageEnglish

Table of contents

1The city of the discreet
2A VOYAGE TO THE MOON
3NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION.
4A VOYAGE TO THE MOON.
5CHAPTER I.
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6Of how the Voyage was Conceived.
7CHAPTER II.
8Of how the Author set out, and where he first arrived.
9CHAPTER III.
10Of his Conversation with the Vice-Roy of New France; and of the system of this Universe.
11CHAPTER IV.
12Of how at last he set out again for the Moon, tho without his own Will.
13CHAPTER V.
14Of his Arrival there, and of the Beauty of that Country in which he fell.
15CHAPTER VI.
16Of a Youth whom he met there, and of their Conversation: what that country was, and the Inhabitants of it.
17CHAPTER VII.
18Being cast out from that Country, of the new Adventures which Befell him; and of the Demon of Socrates.
19CHAPTER VIII.
20Of the Languages of the People in the Moon; of the Manner of Feeding there, and Paying the Scot; and of how the Author was taken to Court.
21CHAPTER IX.
22Of the Little Spaniard whom he met there, and of his quaint Wit; of Vacuum, Specific Weights, and sundry other Philosophical Matters.
23CHAPTER X.
24Where the Author comes in doubt, whether he be a Man, an Ape, or an Estridge;[1] and of the Opinion of the Lunar Philosophers concerning Aristotle.
25CHAPTER XI.
26Of the Manner of making War in the Moon; and of how the Moon is not the Moon, nor the Earth the Earth.
27CHAPTER XII.
28Of a Philosophical Entertainment.
29CHAPTER XIII.
30Of the little Animals that make up our Life, and likewise cause our Diseases; and of the Disposition of the Towns in the Moon.
31CHAPTER XIV.
32Of the Original of All Things; of Atomes; and of the Operation of the Senses.
33CHAPTER XV.
34Of the Books in the Moon, and their Fashion; of Death, Burial, and Burning; of the Manner of telling the Time; and of Noses.
35CHAPTER XVI.
36Of Miracles; and of Curing by the Imagination.
37CHAPTER XVII.
38Of the Author's Return to the Earth.
39FINIS.
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