Émile Bayard's Exploding Lunar Cannon Launch — Jules Verne, 1870s
Originally published as an engraved illustration for Jules Verne's 'Around the Moon' (Autour de la Lune), this dramatic Émile Bayard woodcut engraving depicts the catastrophic launch moment of the Columbiad space projectile from its massive stone cannon. Debris, equipment, and figures are hurled violently outward as the bullet-shaped capsule erupts from the barrel under a pale full moon. The illustration captures Verne's proto-science fiction vision of manned lunar travel with visceral Victorian grandeur.
This is closer to an exploding space station than a quiet library — bodies and wreckage fly in all directions from a titanic Victorian cannon launching a manned bullet to the Moon. Bayard's engraving channels raw kinetic chaos into meticulous crosshatching.
“Emile Bayard”
