Poe’s Moon Shot: “Hans Phaall” and the Art and Science of Antebellum Print Culture

Abstract

Have you seen the accounts of Sir John Herschel’s wonderful discoveries? Have you read the Sun? Have you heard the news of the man in the Moon? These were the questions that met you every where. It was the absorbing topic of the day. Nobody expressed or entertained a doubt as to the truth of the story. -Anonymous review of Lock among the Moonlings, by William N. Gregg, S o u t h Quanbly Reuim, October 1853