Wells (1866-1946) responded to the disquieting mood of the fin de siècle by exercising his prodigiously fecund imagination, talent for literary innovation and scientific erudition. This under-appreciated marvel is, for my money, an intriguing literary BOGOF: the reader receives a fabulously engrossing novel, and the opportunity to reflect upon a literary experiment every bit as audacious as the flight undertaken by Messrs Bedford and Cavor! Stung by intellectually barbed criticism from literary critics and fellow authors alike, Wells set out on his fictional lunar voyage to demonstrate his technical virtuosity and, as importantly to him, to create a literary strategy capable of mass communication. The teleological functional specialisation of the highly orchestrated, hive-like alien society of the Selenites is as nothing when compared to the literary cosmos of tools Wells employed to tell his “fantastic story”. The same may be said of the novel itself. Wells’s The First Men In The Moon (1901) is a fascinating source of riveting adventure and flights of oneiric fancy, as the novel’s protagonists Mr Bedford and Mr Cavor discover, the unexplored satellite hides its most thrilling secrets deep within its subterranean realms.
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