The First Men in the Moon

Summary

The First Men in the Moon is Wells's comic and satirical account of the first journey to the moon. Its narrator, Mr. Bedford, is a bankrupt businessman who has retired to the Kentish village of Lympne to write a play and avoid his creditors. Every afternoon he sees a strange little man, Mr. Cavor, walking past and humming; they meet, and Cavor, a scientist, explains that he is trying to make a substance opaque to gravity. When the substance, Cavorite, is finally made, an accident blows the roof off his laboratory and causes a small hurricane. Bedford sees money in it. Cavor sees knowledge and proposes building a glass sphere with Cavorite blinds that can be opened and shut to steer by the attractions of other bodies. Bedford goes along. They reach the moon at dawn of the long lunar day, watch frozen air melt and strange plants spring to life, and, intoxicated by eating a lunar fungus, lose their sphere. They are captured by the Selenites, insect-like beings who live in vast caverns inside the moon. Bedford panics, kills several Selenites with his fists and a crowbar, and drags Cavor into flight; they become separated, and Bedford finds the sphere and returns alone to earth, landing in the sea at Littlestone with a store of lunar gold. A boy who climbs into the abandoned sphere vanishes with it into space. Months later, Bedford learns that an Italian scientist is receiving radio messages from Cavor on the moon. Cavor describes Selenite society: each individual is shaped from birth for one task, kept in a jar, drugged when not needed, entirely specialized for the good of the whole. At last he is taken to the Grand Lunar, the moon's ruler, a vast brain, and tells him of earth's wars. The messages stop abruptly; Cavor, it seems, revealed too much. Wells uses the moon to satirize human greed, war and imperialism, and the ant-like efficiency of a planned society. The contrast between greedy Bedford and unworldly Cavor shapes the whole book.

Top Lessons

• Greed and curiosity

  Bedford and Cavor go to the moon for different reasons. Wells contrasts love of money with love of knowledge.

• A society of specialists

  The Selenites are shaped for single tasks. Wells asks what is lost when persons become functions.

• Explaining ourselves

  Cavor's account of war appalls the Grand Lunar. The story invites us to see ourselves through strangers' eyes.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Bedford and Cavor eat a lunar fungus that intoxicates them, leading to their capture.

• Ch. 9

  The travellers eat a lunar fungus and become giddy and reckless.