Other Worlds: Journey to the Moon by Foolscap Press

Written by the poet, Cyrano who was, indeed, a brave soldier. He was wounded in battle twice, and was an excellent swordsman. But, most important, he left behind a work that influenced many writers who followed. Cyrano was an satirist, a man ahead of his time who dared to challenge the orthodoxies of both contemporary astronomy and the Church.
 
This work is translated by Geoffrey Strachan who won the Scott Moncrieff Prize for his translation of Makine's Le Testament Français. In his informative introduction of Journey to the Moon he speaks of "pataphysics," a term used by Alfred Jarry meaning the science of imaginary solutions. Mr. Strachan states, "If ever there was a classic example of pataphysics in action it is surely Cyrano's decision to resolve his contemporaries' disputes about the nature of the moon by penning an imaginary flight there—in order, as it were, to see for himself: a perfect marriage between empirical method and poetic imagination."