M & S Rare Books

Document Information
Our descriptions are copyrighted, and may not be reproduced without permission. (title 17, U. S. Code).

(MOON HOAX). (LOCKE, RICHARD ADAMS). GRIGGS, WILLIAM N. The Celebrated "Moon Story," Its Origins and Incidents; with a Memoir of the Author. New York: Bunnell and Price, 1852. 1st hard cover edition & 1st printing of this text. 16mo. 143 pp. Orig. cloth, spine cracked. $350.00

 

    Sabin 28839. This work, prepared by a close acquaintance of Locke, provides a biographical sketch of Locke, anecdotes about the reception of Locke's report, appendices presenting an authentic description of the Moon, and the text of Locke's successful hoax perpetrated in the New York Sun, in August 1835, which pretended to reveal a discovery that men and animals existed on the moon. The revelations, supposedly reprinted from the actually defunct Edinburgh Journal of Science, seemed to reveal a discovery that men and animals existed on the moon and were so cleverly wrought that, for a short time, the report was given credence in scientific circles in the United States and Europe. The report was soon denounced as a hoax by the public press and Richard Adams Locke (1800- 1871), a reporter for the Sun, was identified as the perpetrator of the "ingenious astronomical hoax."