H. G. Wells’ "First Men In The Moon" Early American Edition, 1901.

WELLS, H. G. [HERING, E., illustrator]. The First Men in the Moon. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1901.

First Edition thus. First American Edition by publishers Grosset & Dunlap; scarce. Octavo. Original decorated cloth, gilt-stamped to front board and spine, retaining the design of the Bowen-Merrill first issue. Illustrated with a tissue-guarded frontispiece and additional plates by E. Hering.

Contents clean; a neat prior ownership inscription appears on the half-title. Binding sound and square; hinges firm; pages clean and bright with all illustrations present. Gilt remains visible though gently softened, consistent with age.

Printed from original Bowen-Merrill sheets and issued by Grosset & Dunlap, with the title page stating The Bowen-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1901. A characteristic example of early 20th-century American publishing practice, in which sheets of the first edition were distributed under alternate imprints.

First published in 1901, The First Men in the Moon became one of Wells’s most influential scientific romances and one of the foundational works of modern space fiction. Its imaginative depiction of lunar travel, extraterrestrial civilization, and anti-gravitational technology anticipated many of the themes later central to twentieth-century science fiction and space exploration literature.