Locke, Richard Adams (1800-1871)
The Moon Hoax; or, a Discovery that the Moon has a Vast Population of Human Beings.

New York: William Gowans, 1859.

First edition, octavo, frontispiece opposite title, with a second title page found after the text, without copyright statement on the verso, heading a single leaf of publisher's ads, and a second, twelve-page publisher's catalog with its own title page; bound in contemporary half leather with marbled paper boards, ex library, with stamp to first title and page twenty-five.

"This fabulous account of flora and fauna on the surface of the moon originally appeared as a 'news story' in the New York Sun in August and September in 1835 under the title 'Discoveries in the Moon lately made at the Cape of Good Hope by Sir John Herschel.' Purportedly based on a news release by the Royal Society, the story achieved short-lived credibility by describing the construction and working of a powerful telescope"--Lilly Library, Science Fiction and Fantasy, page 12.