Micromegas

Written in the second century, this tale sends a ship to the Moon, where its crew lands in the middle of a war between the kings of the Moon and the Sun. The 1894 English edition, with the illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, William Strang and J. B. Clark.

Lucian of Samosata

A sea captain describes a walled city ruled by philosophers, where knowledge is painted on the walls and science organizes daily life. Campanella wrote this utopia in 1602, from a prison cell.

Tommaso Campanella

Sailors lost in the Pacific reach Bensalem, an island run by a college of scientists who study nature to improve human life. Bacon's unfinished fable of 1627 imagined the modern research institute.

Francis Bacon

A Spanish adventurer harnesses a flock of wild swans and is carried all the way to the Moon, where he finds a peaceful society of giants. First published in 1638, it is one of the earliest space voyages in English.

Francis Godwin

Cyrano straps bottles of dew to his body to reach the sky and ends up on the Moon, debating philosophy with its inhabitants. A witty 1657 satire that mixes space travel with free thinking.

Cyrano de Bergerac