THE MOON HOAX; OR, A DISCOVERY THAT THE MOON HAS A VAST POPULATION OF HUMAN BEINGS by Locke, Richard Adams - 1859

New York: William Gowans,. 1859. Octavo, pp. [i-v] vi [7] 8-63 [64: blank] [65: second title page (identical to page iii)] [66: blank] [67-68: ads] [1-3] 4-12: publisher's catalogue [13-16: blank] [note: last two leaves are blanks], frontispiece ("the Moon, as seen by Lord Rosse's Telescope. 1856"),. original printed wrappers, sewn.. Lacks the rear cover, front cover dust soiled and lightly worn at. lower corner tip, some loss to spine panel at upper and lower edges,. small chips from upper right margins of two leaves (text not. affected), a very good copy. This book is scarce in its original. binding. (#89898). Later edition. Variant (later?) issue with the imprint "New York: M. Doolady" on the front cover. A reprint of Locke's successful hoax perpetrated in the NEW YORK SUN, in August 1835, which pretended to reveal a discovery that men and animals existed on the moon. The revelations, supposedly reprinted from the actually defunct EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, pretended to reveal a discovery that men and animals existed on the moon and were so cleverly wrought that, for a short time, the report was given credence in scientific circles in the United States and Europe. The report was soon denounced as a hoax by the public press and Richard Adams Locke (1800- 1871), a reporter for the SUN, was identified as the perpetrator of the "ingenious astronomical hoax." Interest in the lunar discoveries increased the SUN's circulation to more than nineteen thousand, the largest of any daily of that time. According to William Gowans who reprinted the story in 1859, Locke's account created such public interest that the owners of the SUN published sixty thousand copies of it in pamphlet form. The pamphlet was published in September 1835 and every copy was sold in less than a month. Nevertheless, the 1835 printings are rare and only a handful of copies survive. Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 1- 137. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 1348 and 1349. Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), p. 728. Locke, Voyages in Space 130. Bleiler (1978), p. 125 (citing earlier editions). Reginald 09129C. Wright (I) 1704a (citing an undated 11-page edition probably published in 1835).