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Francis Godwin, Henry Neville, Margaret Cavendish, H. G. Wells: some Utopian debts. (Essays).(Critical Essay)

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From: ANQ
Date: 20030622
Author:Poole, William

I. Godwin's The Man in the Moone

Francis Godwin's own age knew him primarily as the bishop of Hereford and as an "incomparable historian, being no less critical in histories than the learned Selden"; he was also the friend and fellow antiquary of William Camden (Wood 2.555; DNB). Godwin is, however, much better known today as the author of The Man in the Moone, a Lucianic utopia-cum-moon-voyage that appeared pseudonymously in 1638, five years after his death. The influence of Godwin's piece was vast, most notably on Cyrano de Bergerac's Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires ...