Fiction · 1899
The Brick Moon, and Other Stories
A group of college friends conceives an audacious scheme: to launch an enormous brick sphere into orbit above the earth as a fixed point for ships' navigators to measure longitude by — and when their plan goes wrong in an unexpected way, the brick moon becomes something far stranger than a navigational aid. Further stories round out the collection, ranging from domestic comedy to social satire.
Edward Everett Hale published "The Brick Moon" in 1869, imagining an artificial satellite decades before the idea entered serious scientific discussion — among the earliest works of fiction to do so.
This Bibliomancer edition presents the complete text.
Contents
- Preface
- Chapter I — Preparation
- Chapter II — How We Built It
- Chapter III — Fulfilment
- Chapter IV — Independence
- Part I
- Part II
- Chapter I — Make Ready
- Chapter II — Christmas Morning
- Chapter III — Church and Sermon
- Chapter IV — Is This Christmas?
- Chapter V — This Is Christmas
- The Lost Palace
- Chapter I — Ideals: In Account
- Chapter II — Striking the Balance
- Chapter III — Fulfilment
- Chapter IV — Home Again
- Scene II
- Scene III — Christmas—The End
- Thanksgiving at the Polls
- The Survivor’s Story
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
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About the author
1822–1909 · Victorian
Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) was born in Boston into a prominent New England family — his great-uncle was Revolutionary War martyr Nathan Hale — and was ordained as a Unitarian minister, serving Boston-area congregations for most of his career while writing prolifically on the side. He is best remembered for "The Man Without a Country" (1863), a patriotic Civil War-era short story about an army officer sentenced never to hear his own country's name again, published anonymously to bolster Union sentiment and widely believed true by many contemporary readers; "The Brick Moon" (1869), an early work of science fiction imagining an artificial satellite built to aid navigation, anticipated the idea by nearly a century. A committed social reformer, he was elected chaplain of the United States Senate in 1903. He died in Roxbury, Massachusetts, at eighty-seven.
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