Jules Verne's Moon Voyage — Dark Side of the Moon, Italian Edition c.1870s
The projectile has gone catastrophically off-course — struck by a wayward bolide, the capsule now drifts helplessly in the void as the Moon looms enormous and dark before them, its cratered surface filling the frame while the Sun blazes a brilliant halo behind it. This haunting engraving captures the pivotal moment of cosmic deflection from Verne's lunar adventure, the stark contrast between the dead, shadowed Moon and the radiant solar corona conveying both sublime terror and scientific wonder.
Not the flashiest piece in the Verne canon but absolutely essential — this is proto-science-fiction illustration at its most atmospheric! The way that dark Moon eclipses the blazing Sun is genuinely eerie for an 1870s engraving.
“LA NOTTE DI TRECENTOCINQUANTAQUATTR'ORE E MEZZO. 119 colpa del proiettile, il quale, anzichè seguire rigorosamente la sua traiettoria, se n'è allontanato in mal punto; e per essere più giusti è colpa di quel malcapitato bolide che ha così deplorabilmente deviato la nostra primitiva direzione.”
