From the Earth to the Moon (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) »

A legendary French author and pioneer of the science fiction genre, Jules Verne wrote visionary tales of space, air, and underwater adventure in classics like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

Scarcely more than a century after Jules Verne published one of the most enduring and captivating novels of the nineteenth century in 1865-From the Earth to the Moon-Apollo 8 circled the moon on Christmas Eve in 1968 carrying the first human beings to fly around another celestial body. With uncanny futuristic vision, Verne had not only anticipated that the launch would take place from Florida, but also foresaw a three man crew traveling in a capsule with approximately the same dimensions as the Apollo Command Module, and he had already worked out the necessary launch velocity required to escape the earth's gravity. Though the literary term would not be invented for another seventy years, many critics agree that Verne can be legitimately called the "inventor of Science Fiction."