Jules Verne's Around the Moon — Explorers Survey Lunar Surface, 1870s
Drawn directly from Jules Verne's 'Autour de la Lune' (Around the Moon, 1870), this engraving depicts the daring travelers — Barbicane, Nicholl, and Ardan — surveying the desolate, boulder-strewn lunar surface beneath a star-filled void. The conical nose of their projectile-capsule juts from the rocky terrain in the foreground, while survey equipment is visible on a distant ridge. The dramatic chiaroscuro and fine cross-hatching are hallmarks of the original Hetzel edition's wood engravings.
Before rockets, before NASA, Verne's gentlemen walked the Moon in top hats. The grandfather of all space exploration fiction, rendered in meticulous Victorian ink.
“178 INTORNO ALLA LUNA. attuabile, ed aggiunse che, inviando i raggi luminosi raccolti in fasci per mezzo di specchi parabolici, si potevano anche stabilire comunicazioni dirette; in fatti codesti raggi sareb-”
