(#130783) A VOYAGE TO THE MOON: WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY, OF THE PEOPLE OF MOROSOFIA, AND OTHER LUNARIANS. By Joseph Atterley [pseudonym]. George Tucker, "Joseph Atterley."
A VOYAGE TO THE MOON: WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY, OF THE PEOPLE OF MOROSOFIA, AND OTHER LUNARIANS. By Joseph Atterley [pseudonym] ...

A VOYAGE TO THE MOON: WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY, OF THE PEOPLE OF MOROSOFIA, AND OTHER LUNARIANS. By Joseph Atterley [pseudonym]. New-York: Elam Bliss, 128 Broadway, 1827. 12mo, pp. [i-iii] iv [5] 6-11 [12-13] 14-264, flyleaves at front and rear, original paper covered boards, printed paper label affixed to spine panel, all edges untrimmed. First edition. The earliest interplanetary novel by a native American to use mechanical means for space travel and a basic work out of which American SF developed in the nineteenth century. It is chiefly a satirical story, reminiscent of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, in which the pseudonymous author and hero, Joseph Atterley, and a companion travel to the Moon in a space vehicle coated with an antigravity metal where they observe several Lunarian societies. According to Thomas D. Clareson, The Emergence of American Science Fiction: 1880-1915, pp. 30-1, "Tucker's most significant advancement of SF came when he introduced into the text for their own sake discussions of current scientific theories ..." "A sprawling lunar satire in the vein of pioneered by Cyrano de Bergerac, more closely related to SF than most by virtue of the manner in which it toys briefly with the ideas of several contemporary scientists and social philosophers, including William Godwin, Erasmus Darwin, and Thomas Robert Malthus." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-56. In addition to A VOYAGE TO THE MOON, George Tucker (1775-1861), wrote more than twenty works of biography, history, economics and moral and political philosophy, as well as a second SF novel, A CENTURY HENCE, OR A ROMANCE OF 1941, a tale of the future written around 1841, but not published until 1977. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 1-4; (1981) 1-8; (1987) 1-4; (1995) 1-4; and (2004) II-56. Bailey, Pilgrims Through Space and Time, p. 45. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 91. Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel T22. Lewis, Utopian Literature, p. 189. Locke, Voyages in Space (2011) V105. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 1112. Joel Nydahl, "Early Fictional Futures: Utopia, 1798-1864," Kenneth M. Roemer (ed), America as Utopia (1981), p. 291. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 40. Bleiler (1978), p. 12. Reginald 00620. Wright (I) 2611. Early owners' names written on the front free endpaper. Loss at spine ends, some damp staining and soiling to boards, hairline crack along outer front joint, old damp stains to endpapers, flyleaves and several preliminary and terminal leaves. Nevertheless, a remarkable survival; rare in the original binding. Enclosed in a custom quarter-leather clamshell box. (#130783).

Price: $15,000.00

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