Synopses & Reviews
The Sun and the Moon tells the delightful, entertaining, and surprisingly true story of how in the summer of 1835 a series of articles in the
Sun, the first of the city's "penny papers," convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited.
Six articles, purporting to reveal the lunar discoveries made by a world-famous British astronomer, described the life found on the moon including unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and, strangest of all, four-foot-tall flying man-bats. The series quickly became the most widely circulated newspaper story of the era. And the Sun, a brash working-class upstart less than two years old, had become the most widely read newspaper in the world.
Told in richly novelistic detail, The Sun and the Moon brings the raucous world of 1830s New York City vividly to life the noise, the excitement, the sense that almost anything was possible. The book overflows with larger-than-life characters, including Richard Adams Locke, author of the moon series (who never intended it to be a hoax at all); a fledgling showman named P.T. Barnum, who had just brought his own hoax to New York; and the young writer Edgar Allan Poe, who was convinced that the moon series was a plagiarism of his own work.
An exhilarating narrative history of a city on the cusp of greatness and a nation newly united by affordable newspapers, The Sun and the Moon may just be the strangest true story you've ever read.
Review
"The genius of The Sun and the Moon is that it endeavors to explore...why we believe what we believe, particularly when those beliefs go beyond the pale of plausibility." Los Angeles Times
Review
"A fascinating account of the most successful hoax in the history of American journalism." Rocky Mountain News
Review
"Goodman has managed not only to give us a ripping good newspaper yarn but also to illuminate life in the nation's largest city in the early part of the 19th century." Wall Street Journal
Review
"[An] intriguing story and reveals some fascinating facts about nineteenth-century New York." Booklist
Review
"[A] rollicking read, perhaps better at conveying a lyrical feel for the time and place than for its scholarly analysis." Library Journal
Review
"Goodman consistently entertains with his tale of press manipulation, hucksterism and the seemingly bottomless capacity for people to believe the most outrageous things. Absolutely charming." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
In the tradition of Devil in the White City and The War of the Worlds, the remarkable true story of the hoax that bewildered nineteenth-century America.
About the Author
Matthew Goodman's nonfiction writing has appeared in The Forward, The American Scholar, Harvard Review, Brill's Content, and The Utne Reader. Goodman also received an MFA from Vermont College; his short stories have appeared in leading literary journals, including the Georgia Review, the New England Review, and Witness. He is a lifetime New Yorker and lives in New York City with his wife and children.