Which was the Ur-Example of Interplanetary Voyage

Greetings. I'm making this thread because I didn't see any other suitable place to make this question, and also made sure it wasn't posed before.

I've done some research about what the first work to display Interplanetary Voyage, since the page makes no mention of that (and I admit the description is a bit poor, relying too much on self-demonstration) and none of the examples listed claim to be the first historical example. I have a strong suspicion that it was From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, published in 1865. However, I have read that authors like Cyrano de Bergerac and Johannes Kepler wrote stories about lunar civilizations, albeit these were estabished in-universe and were much more about the lives of the lunarians rather than humans getting to them. Their synopsis, as posted online, are also written with a very abstract and generalized tone, and from them I just can't tell whether or not they truly preceed Verne with the idea of space travel.

Does anyone who's familiar with the history of science fiction help me ease the doubts? Tnaks in advance!

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Sep 7th 2021 at 3:24:34 PM

The page lists Lucian's work True History as the Ur-Example of the trope in the literature section, which makes sense since it's from the second century.

Talk about Failed a Spot Check, ouch! Oh well, thanks!

The reason why I asked the question is because I was researching about historical examples of traveling into space in order to improve the history section of Analysis.Journey To The Sky (which I had created last month). I knew there were mythological examples, but wasn't sure about sci-fi ones.

Pretty amazing to think that Verne was beat out 16 centuries ago.

When I have time, I'll edit the page to correct this oversight. =)

You might be interested in reading Extraterrestrial Civilizations, too.

Thanks. I hope I can get it someday.

I know Voltaire wrote a Humans Through Alien Eyes story about a Jovian and a Saturnian, as I recall, coming to Earth and talking to a group of scholars. The illustrations made them into Human Aliens who were simply giants scaled up to their planet in comparison to Earth. Extraterrestrials and travelling to other planets was well established long before Jules Verne, but he gave the genre a stronger grounding in physics, when previous authors ignored the mechanics of space travel.

The examples from classic history are interesting, but there must have been a turning point when heliocentrism became accepted around the seventeenth century. Before that, the Earth was presumed to be the centre of the cosmos, which gives a very different angle than a writer who knows it to be one planet among many. Furthermore, since no one society knew of more than a portion of the world, you didn't need to invoke other planets, you could imagine any alien thing lying across the ocean.

It's an interesting topic, and the page could do with a better description, but I can't help you much more than this.