Attributed to ‘f. n’ and published in 1909 it features a man that suddenly finds himself on the moon and needs to make friends quickly to survive. Initially, I was drawn to the story due to the writer considering that the lower gravity of the moon would mean taller aliens living there, however it soon descended into simply a reflection of the author’s own experiences transposed to a slightly alien setting. Even the male alien’s wife was in the kitchen organising the food! Not to mention the entirely unbelievable premise of the characters going mountaineering and skiiing on the dark side of the moon.
While the lighter gravity was regularly considered in the writing, as well as the taller aliens and the difficulty the author had with this, much of the adventure could be simply lifted from a contemporary Earth diary.
After several chapters of this, it looked like the editor regretted publishing it as the final paragraph is different in style. Apparently, the man woke up and it was all a dream, then saw his wife next to him. The editor obviously couldn’t even be bothered to read through the whole story again to write a better final paragraph. There was no mention throughout all the chapters of him ever having had a wife.
I found this aspect interesting as, after doing some research on why this could happen I found that in those days stories were published piecemeal before they were complete. I. e. The writer would have been commissioned for a certain number of words but each chapter might only have been written a few days before publication in the newspaper.
This was my first draft of this post. I later posted a new version but decided to keep this one. Check out the other post about it here: A Trip to the Moon by F. N.
