Jules Verne's Around the Moon: Oxygen Intoxication Scene, Italian Edition c.1870s
In an age electrified by scientific progress and the terrifying mystery of outer space, this engraving captures Victorian science fiction's obsession with the fragility of human physiology beyond Earth. A disheveled man staggers in oxygen-drunk stupor aboard a spacecraft, surrounded by collapsed companions, while an electric lamp blazes overhead — Verne's prescient imagining of atmospheric science gone wrong. The chaotic heap of bodies and the dazzling artificial light dramatize the era's twin anxieties: the promise of technology and the punishing indifference of physics.
Restrained Victorian engraving craft keeps the melodrama in check, but the scene of sprawling oxygen-drunk astronauts is delightfully bizarre for its era. It lacks the lurid color and sensationalism of true pulp, but the subject matter is pure proto-pulp speculation.
“A SETTANTOTTOMILA CENTOQUATTORDICI LEGHE. 73 polmoni il loro uffizio normale. A poco a poco i tre amici rinvennero dalla loro ubbriachezza, ma dovettero smaltire il loro ossigeno come un ubbriaco smaltisce il suo vino. 10”
