Tag Archives: Imaginary Voyages

Washington Irving giving us his sexiest come-hither stare.

THE MEN OF THE MOON (1809) – Several decades before H.G. Wells would use his fictional invasion from Mars in War of the Worlds as an allegorical condemnation of colonialism the American author Washington Irving beat him to it. In Irving’s work The Men of the Moon a technologically advanced race from the moon conquered the Earth and treated its inhabitants the way that European and Muslim colonialists treated the indigenous inhabitants of the areas they subjugated.

Irving tongue-in- cheekly called his invaders from the moon “Lunatics” and depicted them as green-skinned humanoids with tails and one eye each instead of two. Their most bizarre feature is the fact that they carry their detached heads tucked under one arm with a spinal column “cord” attaching the head to the body. For refreshment the moon men drink liquid nitrous oxide.  Continue reading →