The First Men in the Moon. H. G. Wells

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       H. G. Wells

      The First Men in the Moon

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664175861

Table of Contents

       Chapter 1 — Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne

       Chapter 2 — The First Making of Cavorite

       Chapter 3 — The Building of the sphere

       Chapter 4 — Inside the Sphere

       Chapter 5 — The Journey to the Moon

       Chapter 6 — The Landing on the Moon

       Chapter 7 — Sunrise on the Moon

       Chapter 8 — A Lunar Morning

       Chapter 9 — Prospecting Begins

       Chapter 10 — Lost Men in the Moon

       Chapter 11 — The Mooncalf Pastures

       Chapter 12 — The Selenite’s Face

       Chapter 13 — Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions

       Chapter 14 — Experiments in intercourse

       Chapter 15 — The Giddy Bridge

       Chapter 16 — Points of View

       Chapter 17 — The Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers

       Chapter 18 — In the Sunlight

       Chapter 19 — Mr. Bedford Alone

       Chapter 20 — Mr. Bedford in Infinite Space

       Chapter 21 — Mr. Bedford at Littlestone

       Chapter 22 — The Astonishing Communication of Mr. Julius Wendigee

       Chapter 23 — An Abstract of the Six Messages First Received from Mr. Cavor

       Chapter 24 — The Natural History of the Selenites

       Chapter 25 — The Grand Lunar

       Chapter 26 — The Last Message Cavor sent to the Earth

Chapter 1—Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne

       Table of Contents

      As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of astonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr. Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have been any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had gone to Lympne because I had imagined it the most uneventful place in the world. “Here, at any rate,” said I, “I shall find peace and a chance to work!”

      And this book is the sequel. So utterly at variance is destiny with all the little plans of men. I may perhaps mention here that very recently I had come an ugly cropper in certain business enterprises. Sitting now surrounded by all the circumstances of wealth, there is a luxury in admitting my extremity. I can admit, even, that to a certain extent my disasters were conceivably of my own making. It may be there are directions in which I have some capacity, but the conduct of business operations is not among these. But in those days I was young, and my youth among other objectionable forms took that of a pride in my capacity for affairs. I am young still in years, but the things that have happened to me have rubbed something of the youth from my mind. Whether they have brought any wisdom to light below it is a more doubtful matter.

      It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the speculations that landed me at Lympne, in Kent. Nowadays even about business transactions there is a strong spice of adventure. I took risks. In these things there is invariably a certain amount of give and take, and it fell to me finally to do the giving reluctantly enough. Even when I had got out of everything, one cantankerous creditor saw fit to be malignant. Perhaps you have met that flaming sense of outraged virtue, or perhaps you have only felt it. He ran me hard. It seemed to me, at last, that there was nothing for it but to write a play, unless I wanted to drudge for my living as a clerk. I have a certain imagination, and luxurious tastes, and I meant to make a vigorous fight for it before that fate overtook me. In addition to my belief in my powers as a business man, I had always in those days had an idea that I was equal to writing a very good play. It is not, I believe, a very uncommon persuasion. I knew there is nothing a man can do outside legitimate business transactions that has such opulent possibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I had, indeed, got into the habit of regarding this unwritten drama as a convenient little reserve put by for a rainy day. That rainy day had come, and I set to work.

      I soon discovered that writing a play was a longer business than I had supposed; at first I had reckoned ten days for it, and it was to have a pied-a-terre while it was in hand that I came to Lympne. I reckoned myself lucky in getting that little bungalow. I got it on a three years’ agreement. I put in a few sticks of furniture, and while the play was in hand I did my own cooking. My cooking would have shocked Mrs. Bond. And yet, you know, it had flavour. I had a coffee-pot, a sauce-pan for eggs, and one for potatoes, and a frying-pan for sausages and bacon—such was the simple apparatus of my comfort. One cannot always be magnificent, but simplicity is always a possible alternative. For the rest I laid in an eighteen-gallon cask of beer on credit, and a trustful baker came each day. It was not, perhaps, in the style of Sybaris, but I have had worse times. I was a little sorry for the baker,