While I think it hasn’t got quite the depth of those, it’s at least as enjoyable, if not more so. This is one I hadn’t read before and perhaps it’s fair to say it’s one of the less well known ones, though only in comparison to the universal fame of some of the others, like The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine. As with the others, I read the Oxford World’s Classics version, which has the usual informative and enjoyable introduction, this time from Simon J James, Professor of Victorian Literature and Head of the Department of English Studies at Durham University, which sets the book in its historical and literary context.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying revisiting some of the HG Wells stories I enjoyed in my youth, and reading for the first time the ones I missed back then. Between the stars was the void, the unfathomable darkness! I sat at the window and stared at the immensity of space. I lay, eyes wide open, and the sphere seemed to get more flimsy and feeble, and Cavor more unreal and fantastic, and the whole enterprise madder and madder every moment. I was like a man awakened out of pleasant dreams to the most horrible surroundings. The strangeness of what we were about to do, the unearthliness of it, overwhelmed me. Now they came like that array of spectres that once beleaguered Prague, and camped around me. ….I do not remember before that night thinking at all of the risks we were running. And so it is that these two mismatched men find themselves as partners on an incredible voyage – to the Moon! Bedford, always with an eye for the main chance, begins to imagine the commercial possibilities of such a substance, but Cavor is more interested in the glory that he will gain from the scientific community. Instead, he meets his new neighbour Mr Cavor, an eccentric scientist, and becomes intrigued and excited by the possibilities of the invention Cavor is working on – a substance that will defy gravity. When Mr Bedford’s financial difficulties become pressing, he leaves London for the quiet of the Kentish countryside to write a play which he is sure will win him fame and fortune, despite him never having written anything before. …and no cheese to be found… 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
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