The Man in the Moone

The Man in the Moone is a book by the English divine

and Church of England bishop Francis Godwin (1562
1633), describing a voyage of utopian discovery.[1] Initially considered to be one of his early works, it is now
generally thought to have been written in the late 1620s.
It was rst published posthumously in 1641 under the
pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales. The work is notable
for its role in what was called the new astronomy, the
branch of astronomy inuenced especially by Nicolaus
Copernicus, the only astronomer mentioned by name, although the book also draws on the theories of Johannes
Kepler and William Gilbert. Godwins astronomical theories were greatly inuenced by Galileo Galilei's Sidereus
Nuncius (1610), but unlike Galileo, Godwin proposes
that the dark spots on the Moon are seas, one of many
parallels with Keplers Somnium sive opus posthumum de
astronomia lunari of 1634.

evidenced in the book.

1 Background and contexts

Godwin, the son of Thomas Godwin, Bishop of Bath and
Wells, was elected a student of Christ Church, Oxford,
in 1578, from where he received his Bachelor of Arts
(1581) and Master of Arts degrees (1584); after entering the church he gained his Bachelor (1594) and Doctor
of Divinity (1596) degrees. He gained prominence (even
internationally) in 1601 by publishing his Catalogue of the
Bishops of England since the rst planting of the Christian
Religion in this Island, which enabled his rapid rise in the
church hierarchy.[3] During his life, he was known as a
historian.[4]

Gonsales is a Spaniard forced to ee the country after

killing a man in a duel. Having made his fortune in the 1.1
East Indies he decides to return to Spain, but falls ill on
the voyage home and is set o on the island of St Helena
to recover. There he discovers a species of wild swan
able to carry substantial loads, the gansa, and contrives a
device that allows him to harness many of them together
and y around the island. Once fully recovered Gonsales
resumes his journey home, but his ship is attacked by a
British eet o the coast of Tenerife. He uses his ying
machine to escape to the shore, but once safely landed he
is approached by hostile natives and is forced to take o
again. This time his birds y higher and higher, towards
the Moon, which they reach after a journey of twelve
days. There Gonsales encounters the Lunars, a tall Christian people inhabiting what appears to be a utopian paradise. After six months of living among them Gonsales
becomes homesick and concerned for the condition of his
birds, and sets o to return to Earth. He lands in China,
where he is immediately arrested as a magician, but after learning the language manages to win the trust of the
local mandarin. The story ends with Gonsales meeting a
group of Jesuit missionaries, who arrange to have a written account of his adventures sent back to Spain.
Some critics consider The Man in the Moone, along with
Keplers Somnium, to be one of the rst works of science
ction.[2] Although the book was well known in the 17th
century, and even inspired parodies by Cyrano de Bergerac and Aphra Behn, modern literary critics do not consider it to be very important. Recent studies have focused
on Godwins theories of language, the mechanics of lunar travel, and his religious position and sympathies as

Scientic advances and lunar speculation

Clockwise, from top left: Copernicus, Gilbert, Kepler, Galileo

Godwins book appeared in a time of great interest in

the Moon and astronomical phenomena, and of important developments in celestial observation, mathematics
and mechanics. The inuence particularly of Nicolaus
1

1 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXTS

Copernicus led to what was called the new astronomy";

Copernicus is the only astronomer Godwin mentions by
name, but the theories of Johannes Kepler and William
Gilbert are also discernible.[1] Galileo Galilei's 1610 publication Sidereus Nuncius (usually translated as The Sidereal Messenger) had a great inuence on Godwins astronomical theories, although Godwin proposes (unlike
Galileo) that the dark spots on the Moon are seas, one
of many similarities between The Man in the Moone and
Keplers Somnium sive opus posthumum de astronomia lunaris of 1634 (The Dream, or Posthumous Work on Lunar Astronomy).[1]
Speculation on lunar habitation was nothing new in Western thought, but it intensied in England during the early
17th century: Philemon Holland's 1603 translation of
Plutarch's Moralia introduced Greco-Roman speculation
to the English vernacular, and poets including Edmund
Spenser proposed that other worlds, including the Moon,
could be inhabited. Such speculation was prompted also
by the expanding geographical view of the world. The
1630s saw the publication of a translation of Lucian's
True History (1634), containing two accounts of trips to
the Moon, and a new edition of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, likewise featuring an ascent to the Moon. In both
books the Moon is inhabited, and this theme was given
an explicit religious importance by writers such as John
Donne, who in Ignatius His Conclave (1611, with new
editions in 1634 and 1635) satirised a lunatic church
on the Moon founded by Lucifer and the Jesuits. Lunar
speculation reached an acme at the end of the decade,
with the publication of Godwins The Man in the Moone
(1641) and John Wilkins's The Discovery of a World in
the Moone (also 1641, and revised in 1640).[5]

1.2

Dating evidence

Frontispiece and cover of the second edition (1657), now with

the pseudonym replaced by F.G. B. of H. (Francis Godwin,
Bishop of Hereford")

Until Grant McColley, a historian of early Modern En-

glish literature, published his The Date of Godwins

Domingo Gonsales" in 1937 it was thought that Godwin
wrote The Man in the Moone relatively early in his life,
perhaps during his time at Christ Church from 1578 to
1584, or maybe even as late as 1603. But McColley proposed a much later date of 1627 or 1628, based on internal and biographical evidence.[6] A number of ideas about
the physical properties of the Earth and the Moon, including claims about a secret property that operates in a
manner similar to that of a loadstone attracting iron, did
not appear until after 1620. And Godwin seems to borrow the concept of using a ock of strong, trained birds
to y Gonsales to the Moon from Francis Bacon's Sylva
sylvarum (Natural History), published in July 1626, all
evidence in favour of McColleys generally accepted dating of 162629, with the probable years of composition
162728.[7][6]
William Poole, in his 2009 edition of The Man in the
Moone, provides additional evidence for a later dating.
Godwin, he argues, most likely got his knowledge of
the Jesuit mission in China (founded in 1601) from a
1625 edition of Samuel Purchas's Purchas his Pilgrimage, which contains a redaction from Nicolas Trigault's
De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (1615) (Concerning the Christian expedition
to China undertaken by the Society of Jesus), itself the
redaction of a manuscript by the Jesuit priest Matteo
Ricci.[8] Poole also sees the inuence of Robert Burton,
who in the second volume of The Anatomy of Melancholy had speculated on gaining astronomical knowledge
through telescopic observation (citing Galileo) or from
space travel (Lucian). Appearing for the rst time in the
1628 edition of the Anatomy is a section on planetary periods, which gives a period for Mars of three years had
Godwin used William Gilberts De Magnete (1600) for
this detail he would have found a Martian period of two
years.[9] Finally, Poole points to what he calls a genetic
debt": while details on for instance the Martian period
could have come from a few other sources, Burton and
Godwin are the only two writers of the time to combine
an interest in alien life with the green children of Woolpit, from a 12th-century account of two mysterious green
children found in Suolk.[10]
One of Godwins major intellectual debts is to Gilberts
De Magnete, in which Gilbert argued that the Earth was
magnetic,[11] though he may have used a derivative account by Mark Ridley or a geographical textbook by
Nathanael Carpenter.[12] Godwin was unlikely to have
been able to gather rst-hand evidence for narrating the
events in his book (such as the details of Gonsaless
journey back from the East, especially a description of
Saint Helena and its importance as a resting place for
sick mariners), relying instead on travel adventures and
other books.[7] He used Trigaults De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas (1615), based on a manuscript by Matteo Ricci, the founder of the Jesuit mission in Beijing in
1601, for information about that mission. Details pertain-

3
ing to the sea voyage and Saint Helena likely came from
Thomas Cavendish's account of his rst circumnavigation of the world, available in Richard Hakluyt's Principal
Navigations (15991600) and in Purchas His Pilgrimage,
rst published in 1613.[7] Information on the Dutch Revolt, the historical setting for the early part of Gonsales
career, likely came from the annals of Emanuel van Meteren, a Dutch historian working in London.[13]

1.3

English editions and translations

John Norton, and the book was sold by Joshua Kirton and
Thomas Warren. It also includes an epistle introducing
the work and attributed to E. M., perhaps the ctitious
Edward Mahon identied in the Stationers Register as
the translator from the original Spanish.[17] Poole speculates that this Edward Mahon might be Thomas or Morgan Godwin, two of the bishops sons who had worked
with their father on telegraphy,[18] but adds that Godwins
third son, Paul, might be involved as well. The partial revision of the manuscript (the rst half has dates according
to the Gregorian calendar, the second half still follows
the superseded Julian calendar) indicates an unnished
manuscript, which Paul might have acquired after his fathers death and passed on to his former colleague Joshua
Kirton: Paul Godwin and Kirton were apprenticed to the
same printer, John Bill, and worked there together for
seven years. Paul may have simply continued the E. M.
hoax unknowingly, and/or may have been responsible for
partial revision of the manuscript.[19] To the second edition, published in 1657, was added Godwins Nuncius
Inanimatus (in English and Latin; rst published in 1629).
The third edition was published in 1768; its text was
abridged, and a description of Saint Helena (by printer
Nathaniel Crouch[6][20] ) functioned as an introduction.[15]
A French translation by Jean Baudoin, L'Homme dans
la Lune, was published in 1648, and republished four
more times.[lower-alpha 1] This French version excised the
narratives sections on Lunar Christianity, [22] as so do
the many translations based on it,[23] including the German translation incorrectly ascribed[24] to Hans Jakob
Christoel von Grimmelshausen, Der iegende Wandersmann nach dem Mond, 1659.[lower-alpha 2] Johan van
Brosterhuysen (c. 15941650) translated the book into
Dutch,[26] and a Dutch translation possibly Brosterhuysens, although the attribution is uncertain[27] went
through seven printings in the Netherlands between 1645
and 1718. The second edition of 1651 and subsequent
editions include a continuation of unknown authorship relating Gonsales further adventures.[28][29][lower-alpha 3]

Frontispiece of Der Fliegende Wandersmann nach dem Mond,

1659

McColley knew of only one surviving copy of the rst edition, held at the British Museum[6] (now British Library
C.56.c.2), which was the basis for his 1937 edition of
The Man in the Moone and Nuncius Inanimatus, an edition
criticised by literary critic Kathleen Tillotson as lacking
in textual care and consistency.[14] H. W. Lawtons review
published six years earlier mentions a second copy in the
Bibliothque nationale de France, V.20973 (now RES PV- 752 (6)), an omission also noted by Tillotson.[15] For
the text of his 2009 edition, William Poole collated a copy
in the Bodleian Library Oxford (Ashm. 940(1)) with that
in the British Library.[16] The printer of the rst edition
of The Man in the Moone is identied on the title page as

2 Plot summary
The story is written as a rst-person narrative from the
perspective of Domingo Gonsales, the books ctional
author. In his opening address to the reader the equally
ctional translator E. M. promises an essay of Fancy,
where Invention is shewed with Judgment".[30] Gonsales
is a citizen of Spain, forced to ee to the East Indies after killing a man in a duel. There he prospers by trading in jewels, and having made his fortune decides to
return to Spain. But on his voyage home he becomes
seriously ill, and he and a negro servant Diego are put
ashore on St Helena, a remote island with a reputation
for temperate and healthful air.[31] A scarcity of food
forces Gonsales and Diego to live some miles apart, but
Gonsales devises a variety of systems to allow them to

4
communicate.[lower-alpha 4] Eventually he comes to rely on
a species of bird he describes as some kind of wild swan,
a gansa, to carry messages and provisions between himself and Diego. Gonsales gradually comes to realise that
these birds are able to carry substantial burdens, and resolves to construct a device by which a number of them
harnessed together might be able to support the weight of
a man, allowing him to move around the island more conveniently. Following a successful test ight he determines
to resume his voyage home, hoping that he might ll the
world with the Fame of [his] Glory and Renown.[33] But
on his way back to Spain, accompanied by his birds and
the device he calls his Engine, his ship is attacked by a
British eet o the coast of Tenerife and he is forced to
escape by taking to the air.[lower-alpha 5]
After setting down briey on Tenerife, Gonsales is forced
to take o again by the imminent approach of hostile natives. But rather than ying to a place of safety among the
Spanish inhabitants of the island the gansas y higher and
higher. On the rst day of his ight Gonsales encounters
illusions of 'Devils and Wicked Spirits" in the shape of
men and women, some of whom he is able to converse
with.[34] They provide him with food and drink for his
journey and promise to set him down safely in Spain if
only he will join their Fraternity, and enter into such
Covenants as they had made to their Captain and Master, whom they would not name.[35] Gonsales declines
their oer, and after a journey of 12 days reaches the
Moon. Suddenly feeling very hungry he opens the provisions he was given en route, only to nd nothing but
dry leaves, goats hair and animal dung, and that his wine
stunk like Horse-piss.[36] He is soon discovered by the
inhabitants of the Moon, the Lunars, whom he nds to
be tall Christian people enjoying a happy and carefree
life in a kind of pastoral paradise.[37][lower-alpha 6] Gonsales discovers that order is maintained in this apparently
utopian state by swapping delinquent children with terrestrial children.[lower-alpha 7]
The Lunars speak a language consisting not so much of
words and letters as tunes and strange sounds, which
Gonsales succeeds in gaining some uency in after a
couple of months.[40] Six months or so after his arrival
Gonsales becomes concerned about the condition of his
gansas, three of whom have died. Fearing that he may
never be able to return to Earth and see his children
again if he delays further, he decides to take leave of his
hosts, carrying with him a gift of precious stones from the
supreme monarch of the Moon, Irdonozur. The stones are
of three dierent sorts: Poleastis, which can store and
generate great quantities of heat; Macbrus, which generates great quantities of light; and Ebelus, which when
one side of the stone is clasped to the skin renders a
man weightless, or half as heavy again if the other side
is touched.
Gonsales harnesses his gansas to his Engine and leaves
the Moon on 29 March 1601. He lands in China about
nine days later, without re-encountering the illusions of

3 THEMES
men and women he had seen on his outward journey
and with the help of his Ebelus, which helps the birds
to avoid plummeting to Earth as the weight of Gonsales and his Engine threatens to become too much for
them.[lower-alpha 8] He is quickly arrested and taken before
the local mandarin, accused of being a magician, and as
a result is conned in the mandarins palace. He learns
to speak the local dialect of Chinese, and after some
months of connement is summoned before the mandarin
to give an account of himself and his arrival in China,
which gains him the mandarins trust and favour. Gonsales hears of a group of Jesuits, and is granted permission to visit them.[lower-alpha 9] He writes an account of his
adventures, which the Jesuits arrange to have sent back to
Spain. The story ends with Gonsaless fervent wish that
he may one day be allowed to return to Spain, and that by
enriching my country with the knowledge of these hidden
mysteries, I may at least reap the glory of my fortunate
misfortunes.[43]

3 Themes
3.1 Religion
The story is set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth
I, a period of religious conict in England. Not only
was there the threat of a Catholic resurgence but there
were also disputes within the Protestant Church. When
Gonsales rst encounters the Lunars he exclaims "Jesu
Maria",[44] at which the Lunars fall to their knees, but
although they revere the name of Jesus they are unfamiliar with the name Maria, suggesting that they are
Protestants rather than Catholics;[45] Poole is of the same
opinion: their lack of reaction to the name of Mary
suggests that they have not fallen into the errors of the
Catholic Church, despite some otherwise rather Catholiclooking institutions on the moon.[22] Beginning in the
1580s, when Godwin was a student at Oxford University,
many publications criticising the governance of the established Church of England circulated widely, until in
1586 censorship was introduced, resulting in the Martin
Marprelate controversy. Martin Marprelate was the name
used by the anonymous author or authors of the illegal
tracts attacking the Church published between 1588 and
1589. A number of commentators, including Grant McColley, have suggested that Godwin strongly objected
to the imposition of censorship, expressed in Gonsaless
hope that the publication of his account may not prove
prejudicial to the Catholic faith.[45][46] John Clark has
suggested that the Martin Marprelate controversy may
have inspired Godwin to give the name Martin to the Lunars god, but as a bishop of the Church of England it
is perhaps unlikely that he was generally sympathetic to
the Martin Marprelate position.[45] Critics do not agree
on the precise denomination of Godwins Lunars. In contrast with Clark and Poole, David Cressy argues that the

3.2

Lunar language

Lunars falling to their knees after Gonsaless exclamation (a similar ritual takes place at the court of Irdonozur)
is evidence of a fairly mechanical form of religion (as
most of Godwins Protestant contemporaries judged Roman Catholicism)".[5]
By the time The Man in the Moone was published, discussion on the plurality of worlds had begun to favour the
possibility of extraterrestrial life.[5] For Christian thinkers
such a plurality is intimately connected to Christ and his
redemption of man: if there are other worlds, do they
share a similar history, and does Christ also redeem them
in his sacrice?[22] According to Philipp Melanchthon, a
16th-century theologian who worked closely with Martin
Luther, It must not be imagined that there are many
worlds, because it must not be imagined that Christ died
or was resurrected more often, nor must it be thought that
in any other world without the knowledge of the son of
God, that men would be restored to eternal life. Similar comments were made by Calvinist theologian Lambert
Daneau. Midway through the 17th century the matter appears to have been settled in favour of a possible plurality, which was accepted by Henry More and Aphra Behn
among others; by 1650, the Elizabethan Oxford examination question an sint plures mundi? ('can these be many
worlds?' to which the correct Aristotelian answer was
'no') had been replaced by the disputation thesis quod
Luna sit habitabilis ('that the moon could be habitable'
which might be answered 'probably' if not 'yes)".[5]

3.2

Lunar language

Godwin had a lifelong interest in language and communication (as is evident in Gonsaless various means
of communicating with his servant Diego on St. Helena), and this was the topic of his Nuncius inanimatus (1629).[7] The language Gonsales encounters on the
Moon bears no relation to any he is familiar with, and it
takes him months to acquire sucient uency to communicate properly with the inhabitants. While its vocabulary appears limited, its possibilities for meaning
are multiplied since the meaning of words and phrases
also depends on tone. Invented languages were an important element of earlier fantastical accounts such as
Thomas More's Utopia, Franois Rabelais's Gargantua
and Pantagruel and Joseph Hall's Mundus Alter et Idem,
all books that Godwin was familiar with.[47] P. Cornelius,
in a study of invented languages in imaginary travel accounts from the 17th and 18th centuries, proposes that a
perfect, rationally organised language is indicative of the
Enlightenment's rationalism.[48] As H. Neville Davies argues, Godwins imaginary language is more perfect than
for instance Mores in one aspect: it is spoken on the entire Moon and has not suered from the Earthly dispersion of languages caused by the fall of the Tower of Babel.[47]

Transcription of lunar language, from the 1659 German edition

provides two examples of spoken phrases, written down

in a cipher later explained by John Wilkins in Mercury, or
The Secret and Swift Messenger (1641).[49] Trigaults account of the Chinese language gave Godwin the idea of
assigning tonality to the Lunar language, and of appreciating it in the language spoken by the Chinese mandarins
Gonsales encounters after his return to Earth. Gonsales
claims that in contrast to the multitude of languages in
China (making their speakers mutually unintelligible),
the mandarins language is universal by virtue of tonality (he suppresses it in the other varieties of Chinese).
Thus the mandarins are able to maintain a cultural and
spiritual superiority resembling that of the Lunar upper
class, which is to be placed in contrast with the variety of
languages spoken in a fractured and morally degenerate
Europe and elsewhere.[47] Knowlson argues that using the
term language is overstating the case, and that cipher is
the proper term: In spite of Godwins claims, this musical 'language' is not in fact a language at all, but simply a
cipher in which the letters of an existing language may be
transcribed.[7] He suggests Godwins source may have
been a book by Joan Baptista Porta, whose De occultis
One of Godwins sources for his Lunar language was Tri- literarum notis (1606)[lower-alpha 10] contains an exact degaults De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas.[47] Gonsales scription of the method he was to adopt.[7]

6 MODERN EDITIONS

Genre

the Moon ... by Manuel Antonio de Rivas (1775).[60] The

Laputan language of Jonathan Swift, who was a distant
The books genre has been variously categorised. When relation of Godwins, may have been inuenced by The
Moone, either directly or through Cyrano de
it was rst published the literary genre of utopian fan- Man in the
[47]
Bergerac.
tasy was in its infancy, and critics have recognised how
Godwin used a utopian setting to criticise the institutions The Man in the Moone became a popular source for
of his time: the Moon was the ideal perspective from often extravagantly staged comic drama and opera,[61]
which to view the earth and its moral attitudes and so- including Aphra Behns The Emperor of the Moon, a
cial institutions, according to Maurice Bennett.[50] Other 1687 play inspired by ... the third edition of [The Man
critics have referred to the book as utopia,[51] Re- in the Moone], and the English translation of Cyranos
naissance utopia or picaresque adventure.[52] While work,[52] and Elkanah Settle's The World in the Moon
some critics claim it as one of the rst works of science (1697).[62] Thomas D'Urfey's Wonders in the Sun, or the
ction,[2][53] there is no general agreement that it is even Kingdom of the Birds (1706) was really a sequel, starring
proto-science-ction.[52]
Domingo and Diego.[61] Its popularity was not limited to
Early commentators recognised that the book is a kind English; a Dutch farce, Don Domingo Gonzales of de Man
been written by
of picaresque novel, and comparisons with Don Quixote in de maan, formerly considered to have[63]
Maria
de
Wilde,
was
published
in
1755.
were being made as early as 1641. In structure as well as
content The Man in the Moone somewhat resembles the
anonymous Spanish novella Lazarillo de Tormes (1554);
both books begin with a genealogy and start out in Salamanca, featuring a man who travels from master to master seeking his fortune. But most critics agree that the picaresque mode is not sustained throughout, and that Godwin intentionally achieves a generic transformation.[54]
Godwins book follows a venerable tradition of travel literature that blends the excitement of journeys to foreign
places with utopian reection; Mores Utopia is cited as a
forerunner, as is the account of Amerigo Vespucci. Godwin could fall back on an extensive body of work describing the voyages undertaken by his protagonist, including books by Hakluyt and Jan Huyghen van Linschoten,
and the narratives deriving from the Jesuit mission in
Beijing.[55]

Criticism and inuence

The Man in the Moone was published ve months after The Discovery of a World in the Moone by John
Wilkins,[56] later bishop of Chester. Wilkins refers to
Godwin once, in a discussion of spots in the Moon, but
not to Godwins book.[15] In the third edition of The Discovery (1640), however, Wilkins provides a summary of
Godwins book, and later in Mercury (1641) he comments
on The Man in the Moone and Nuncius Inanimatus, saying
that the former text could be used to unlock the secrets
of the latter.[57] The Man in the Moone quickly became
an international source of humour and parody": Cyrano
de Bergerac, using Baudoins 1648 translation, parodied
it in L'Autre Monde: o les tats et Empires de la Lune
(1657);[52][58] Cyranos traveller actually meets Gonsales,
who is still on the Moon, degraded to the status of pet
monkey.[59] It was one of the inspirations for what has
been called the rst science ction text in the Americas,
Syzygies and Lunar Quadratures Aligned to the Meridian
of Mrida of the Yucatn by an Anctitone or Inhabitant of

The books inuence continued into the 19th century.

Edgar Allan Poe in an appendix to "The Unparalleled
Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" called it a singular
and somewhat ingenious little book.[50] Poe assumed
the author to be French, an assumption also made by
Jules Verne in his From the Earth to the Moon (1865),
suggesting that they may have been using Baudoins
translation.[64] H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon
(1901) has several parallels with Godwins fantasy, including the use of a stone to induce weightlessness.[65] But
The Man in the Moone has nevertheless been given only
lukewarm consideration in dierent histories of English
literature,[52] and its importance is downplayed in studies of Utopian literature. Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P.
Manuels Utopian Thought in the Western World (winner
of the 1979 National Book Award for Nonction) mentions it only in passing, saying that Godwin treats primarily of the mechanics of ight with the aid of a crew
of birds, and that The Man in the Moone, like Bergeracs
and Wilkinss books, lacks high seriousness and unied
moral purpose.[66]
Gonsaless load-carrying birds have also left their mark.
The Oxford English Dictionary's entry for gansa reads
One of the birds (called elsewhere 'wild swans) which
drew Domingo Gonsales to the Moon in the romance by
Bp. F. Godwin. For the etymology it suggests ganz,
found in Philemon Hollands 1601 translation of Pliny the
Elder's Natural History.[67] Michael van Langren (Langrenus), the 17th-century Dutch astronomer and cartographer, named one of the lunar craters for them, Gansii,
later renamed Halley.[28]

6 Modern editions
The Man in the Moone: or a Discourse of a Voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales, 1641. Facsimile
reprint, Scolar Press, 1971.
The Man in the Moone and Nuncius Inanimatus, ed.

7
Grant McColley. Smith College Studies in Modern Languages 19. 1937.[14] Repr. Logaston Press,
1996.
The Man in the Moone. A Story of Space Travel in
the Early 17th Century, 1959.
The Man in the Moone, in Charles C. Mish, Short
Fiction of the Seventeenth Century, 1963. Based on
the second edition, with modernised text (an eccentric choice).[47]
The Man in the Moone, in Faith K. Pizor and T. Allan
Comp, eds., The Man in the Moone and Other Lunar
Fantasies. Praeger, 1971.[68]
The Man in the Moone, ed. William Poole. Broadview, 2009. ISBN 978-1-55111-896-3.

6.1

Monographs on The Man in the Moone

Anke Janssen, Francis Godwins The Man in the

Moone": Die Entdeckung des Romans als Medium
der Auseinandersetzung mit Zeitproblemen. Peter
Lang, 1981.[69]

[5] At the time the book was written England was at war with
Spain.
[6] Godwin proposes that as the Earth is magnetic,[1] only an
initial push is necessary to escape its magnetic attraction,
a push provided by the gansas.[38]
[7] Godwin cites the green children of Woolpit as an example of Lunar children sent to Earth. The Lunars call their
god Martinus, which might reect the name of the green
childrens home, St Martins Land.[39]
[8] Gonsales speculates that his return journey was two days
shorter than his outward journey because of the eagerness of his gansas to return to their home, or the Earths
greater magnetic attraction.[41] A modern mathematician,
Andrew Simoson, has pointed out that the discrepancy
can also be explained by the gansas ying directly towards
where they could see the Moon to be on their outward
journey. Therefore rather than travelling in a straight line
they ew in a pursuit curve, attempting to catch up with
the Moon as it orbited the Earth. But as the Earth orbits
the Sun more slowly than the Moon orbits the Earth, the
pursuit curve for the return journey was correspondingly
shorter, and hence the journey home quicker.[42]
[9] A Jesuit mission was set up in Beijing in 1601 by Matteo
Ricci and Diego de Pantoja.[15]
[10] This is a revised edition of his De furtivis literarum notis,
vulgo de Ziferis libri iiii, rst published in Naples in 1563.

References

Notes
[1] Brger lists publications from 1651, 1654, 1666, and
1671.[21]

Citations
[1] Hutton, Sarah (2005), "The Man in the Moone and
the New Astronomy: Godwin, Gilbert, Kepler (PDF),
tudes pistm 7: 313
[2] Poole (2010), p. 57

[2] The German translation of The Man in the Moone was

published in 1660 and 1667 with two texts by Balthasar
Venator, one of which also a lunar travel narrative; Grimmelshausen had written an appendix to The Man in the
Moone for the 1667 edition (apparently to ll up 13 empty
pages at the request of his regular printer, Johann Jonathan
Felecker). Since then, his name has become associated
with The Man in the Moone, although the appendix was
not reprinted in his collected works. According to Brger,
the German translator of The Man in the Moone may have
been Hieronymus Imhof (16061668) of Wolfenbttel, a
tutor to the princes at the court of Augustus the Younger,
Duke of Brunswick-Lneburg;[24] the incorrect ascription
to Grimmelshausen was cited as recently as 1945.[25]
[3] W. H. van Seters notes that in 1651 two Dutch publishers,
Jacob Benjamin in Amsterdam and I. G. van Houten in
The Hague, published dierent continuations of the narrative, both bound with the second edition of Godwins
book; Benjamins continuation is signed E. M., the initials of Godwins ctional narrator. The continuation by
van Houten exists in only one printing, but he had apparently planned for a third volume, a sequel to the sequel.[27]
[4] Remote signalling was one of Godwins personal
obsessions.[32]

[3] Poole (2009), pp. 1314

[4] Poole (2009), pp. 1415
[5] Cressy, David (2006), Early Modern Space Travel and
the English Man in the Moon, The American Historical
Review 111 (4): 96182, doi:10.1086/ahr.111.4.961
[6] McColley, Grant (1937), The Date of Godwins
Domingo Gonsales", Modern Philology 35 (1): 4760,
doi:10.1086/388279, JSTOR 433961
[7] Knowlson, James R. (1968), A Note on Bishop Godwins
Man in the Moone:" The East Indies Trade Route and a
'Language' of Musical Notes, Modern Philology 65 (4):
35791, doi:10.1086/390001, JSTOR 435786
[8] Poole (2009), pp. 1819
[9] Poole (2009), pp. 1920
[10] Poole (2009), pp. 2022
[11] Poole (2010), p. 62
[12] Poole (2009), pp. 2324
[13] Poole (2009), p. 27

REFERENCES

[14] Tillotson, Kathleen (1939), Rev. of McColley, The Man

in the Moone and Nuncius Inanimatus", Modern Language
Review 34 (1): 9293, JSTOR 3717147

[43] Godwin (1768), p. 47

[15] Lawton, H. W. (1931), Bishop Godwins Man in the

Moone", The Review of English Studies 7 (25): 2355,
doi:10.1093/res/os-vii.25.23, JSTOR 508383

[45] Clark, John (2007), Bishop Godwins 'The Man in the

Moone': The other Martin, Science Fiction Studies 34 (1):
1649, JSTOR 4241513

[16] Poole (2009), p. 63

[46] Godwin (1768), p. 10

[17] Poole (2010), p. 66

[18] Poole (2009), p. 58
[19] Poole (2009), pp. 5860
[20] McColley, Grant (1937), The Third Edition of Francis
Godwins The Man in the Moone", The Journal, s4 17 (4):
4725, doi:10.1093/library/s4-XVII.4.472
[21] Brger & Schmidt-Glintzer (1993), p. 146
[22] Poole (2009), p. 41
[23] Poole (2009), pp. 4950
[24] Brger & Schmidt-Glintzer (1993), pp. 13840
[25] Hennig, John (1945), Simplicius Simplicissimuss
British Relations, Modern Language Review 40 (1):
3745, JSTOR 3717748
[26] Frederiks & Branden (188891), p. 121
[27] Seters, W. H. van (195254), De nederlandse uitgaven
van The Man in the Moone", Het Boek 31: 15772

[44] Godwin (1768), p. 29

[47] Neville Davies, H. (1967), Bishop Godwins 'Lunatique

Language'", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30: 296316, JSTOR 750747
[48] Arveiller, R. (1967), Rev. of Cornelius, Languages
in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Imaginary
Voyages", Revue d'Histoire littraire de la France 67 (1):
1434, JSTOR 40523004
[49] Neville Davies, H. (1967), The History of a Cipher, 16021772, Music & Letters 48 (4): 3259,
doi:10.1093/ml/xlviii.4.325, JSTOR 733227
[50] Bennett, Maurice J. (1983), Edgar Allan Poe and the
Literary Tradition of Lunar Speculation, Science Fiction
Studies 10 (2): 13747, JSTOR 4239545
[51] Sargent, Lyman Tower (1976), Themes in Utopian Fiction in English before Wells, Science Fiction Studies 3 (3):
27582, JSTOR 4239043
[52] Monterrey, Toms (2005), "The Man in the Moone: Godwins Narrative Experiment and the Scientic Revolution, Revista canaria de estudios ingleses 50: 7186

[28] Poole (2009), p. 49

[53] Sharp, Patrick B. (2011), Colonialism and Early English

SF; Review of Poole (ed.), The Man in the Moone", Science
Fiction Studies 38 (2): 3512

[29] Buisman, M. (1960), Populaire Prozaschrijvers van 1600

tot 1815, B. M. Israel, pp. 1278

[54] Poole (2009), pp. 2628

[30] Godwin (2009), p. 67

[31] Godwin (1768), p. 4
[32] Poole (2010), p. 65
[33] Godwin (1768), p. 15
[34] Godwin (1768), p. 21
[35] Godwin (1768), p. 22
[36] Godwin (1768), p. 28
[37] Capoferro (2010), p. 154
[38] Capoferro (2010), pp. 1534
[39] Clark, John (2006), "'Small, Vulnerable ETs: The Green
Children of Woolpit, Science Fiction Studies 33 (2): 209
29, JSTOR 4241432
[40] Godwin (1768), p. 36
[41] Godwin (1768), p. 43
[42] Simoson, Andrew J. (2007), Pursuit Curves for the Man
in the Moone, The College Mathematics Journal 38 (5):
3308, JSTOR 27646531

[55] Poole (2009), pp. 2831

[56] Ilie, Rob (2000), The Masculine Birth of Time: Temporal Frameworks of Early Modern Natural Philosophy,
The British Journal for the History of Science 33 (4): 427
53, doi:10.1017/s0007087400004209, JSTOR 4028029
[57] Poole (2009), p. 48
[58] Ridgely, Beverly S. (1957), A Sixteenth-Century French
Cosmic Voyage: Nouvelles des rgions de la lune, Studies
in the Renaissance 4: 16989, JSTOR 2857145
[59] Poole (2009), p. 51
[60] Dziubinskyj, Aaron (2003), The Birth of Science Fiction
in Spanish America, Science Fiction Studies 30 (1): 21
32, JSTOR 4241138
[61] Poole (2009), p. 52
[62] Janssen, Anke (1985), A Hitherto Unnoticed Allusion to
Francis Godwins The Man in the Moone in Swifts The
Battel Between the Antient and the Modern Books", Notes
and Queries 32 (1): 200
[63] de Jeu (2000), pp. 2234
[64] Poole (2009), p. 53

[65] Poole (2009), p. 54

[66] Manuel & Manuel (1979), p. 219
[67] ganza, n., Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.) (Oxford University Press), retrieved 23 April 2013, (subscription required (help))
[68] Marsaklsis, Ann (1972), Rev. of Pizor and Comp, The
Man in the Moone and Other Lunar Fantasies", Isis 63 (1):
108, doi:10.1086/350850, JSTOR 229203
[69] Hutton, Sarah (1983), Rev. of Janssen, Francis Godwins The Man in the Moone", Isis 74 (2): 267,
doi:10.1086/353263, JSTOR 233122

Bibliography
Brger, Thomas; Schmidt-Glintzer, Helwig (1993),
Der Fliegende Wandersmann nach dem Mond: Faksimiledruck der deutschen bersetzung (in German),
Herzog August Bibliothek, ISBN 978-3-88373074-5
Capoferro, Riccardo (2010), Empirical Wonder:
Historicizing the Fantastic, 16601760, Peter Lang,
ISBN 978-3-0343-0326-2
Frederiks, J. G.; Branden, Jos. van den (188891),
Brosterhuysen, Johan van, Biographisch woordenboek der Noord en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde
(in Dutch), Veen
Godwin, Francis (1768), The Strange Voyage and
Adventures of Domingo Gonsales, to the World in the
Moon ... With a Description of the Pike of Teneri, as
Travelled up by Some English Merchants (2nd ed.),
John Lever
Godwin, Francis (2009), The Man in the Moone:
Or a Discourse of a Voyage Thither, in Poole,
William, The Man in the Moone, Broadview, pp.
65134, ISBN 978-1-55111-896-3
de Jeu, A. (2000), 't Spoor der dichteressen:
netwerken en publicatiemogelijkheden van schrijvende vrouwen in de Republiek (16001750) (in
Dutch), Verloren, ISBN 978-90-6550-612-2
Manuel, Frank E.; Manuel, Fritzie P. (1979),
Utopian Thought in the Western World, Harvard
University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-93185-5
Poole, William (2009), Introduction, in Poole,
William, The Man in the Moone, Broadview, pp.
1362, ISBN 978-1-55111-896-3
Poole, William (2010), Keplers Somnium and
Francis Godwins The Man in the Moone: Births
of Science-Fiction 15931641, in Houston, Chlo,
New Worlds Reected: Travel and Utopia in the
Early Modern Period, Ashgate, pp. 5770, ISBN
978-0-7546-6647-9

8 Further reading
Godwin, Francis (1718), De man in de maan, of,
Een verhaal van een reyse derwaarts (in Dutch) (5th
ed.), Filip Verbeek
The Man in the Moone public domain audiobook at
LibriVox

9 External links
Francis Godwin at the Internet Speculative Fiction
Database
The Man in the Moone title listing at the Internet
Speculative Fiction Database

10

10

10
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