Moon Landings
As part of the Moon Landing in Context project, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on 20th July 1969, I’ve been asked to compile a list of lunar narratives in science fiction. The project aims to contextualise the Moon Landing within the historical, social, and cultural framework of the Sixties, specifically the period from 1962, President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University, to 1972, the year of the last Apollo Mission. Running from September 2018 to December 2019, Moon Landing in Context is organised by Framingham State University and the Smithsonian Institution, with the UK contributing a programme of events organised by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the UK Space Agency.
In a nod to Apollo 11, I have chosen 11 books that feature lunar travel, moon landings and lunar space programmes from the Renaissance period to the present day:
Francis Godwin, The Man in the Moone (1638)
Cyrano de Bergerac, The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1657)
Aphra Behn, The Emperor of the Moon (1687)
Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (1865)
H. G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon (1901)
Thea von Harbou, The Woman in the Moon (Die Frau im Mond) (1928)
Tawfiq al-Hakim, Moon Report (Taqrir qamari) (1970)
Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust (1961)
Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
Deji Bryce Olukotun, Nigerians in Space (2014)
Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift (2019)
Dr Caroline Edwards is Senior Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research and teaching specialisms are in 21st century literature and critical theory, science fiction and post-apocalyptic narratives, Marxist aesthetics, and utopianism.
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