A Flight to the Moon

Published originally in 1813, which predates Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by five years, this is arguably the first modern science fiction novel—worthwhile to sci-fi aficionados as an important milestone in the history of the genre.

Randalthus, the hero, during an evening walk, sits down by a river and is pondering the moon when an angelic being arrives in a "milk white cloud," an illuminated bubble in which he is transported to the Earth's satellite. There he meets human beings living in a ...