From The Earth To The Moon.

A Russian edition of both of Verne’s Moon novels, From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Around the Moon (1870), as a two-part novel in Mark Vovchok’s translation. The title page credits Perelman with the scientific editing, the notes in the text, a biographical sketch of Verne, and an afterword. The sketch (p. 5) surveys Verne’s life and lists his novels by region, and Perelman says he found Verne scientifically scrupulous while editing the astronomical novels; the book’s corrections of outdated data appear in the text or notes.

The afterword, “On Trips to the Moon” (pp. 449 ff.), has four sections: Verne’s predecessors (Poe, Dumas, Wells, and Lasswitz among them); whether a cannon could shoot a projectile to the Moon (it can, theoretically, at about 11 km/s); why Verne’s plan fails for living passengers (the shock of a gun launch would be some 64,000 times normal weight); and modern projects of interplanetary flight. The last section turns to the rocket, citing Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation, liquid-fuel rockets, Oberth’s launching apparatus, Goddard’s remark that a Moon rocket is possible within the present generation, and four stages ahead: a high-altitude research rocket, mail rockets, piloted transoceanic rockets, and a lunar flyby. Its arithmetic follows Chapters VI and VII of Perelman’s Interplanetary Travels, which it cites in a footnote.

Perelman had also edited an earlier Russian Verne edition (1928); both editions of Interplanetary Travels are in this collection. Print run 50,000, approved for printing 19 December 1934.