Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien
(1619-1655)

France

BERGERAC, Savinien Cyrano de, French author. He was distinguished for his courage in the field, and for the number of his duels, more than a thousand, most of them fought on account of his monstrously large nose. His writings, which are often crude, but full of invention, vigor and wit, include a tragedy, ‘Agrippine,’ which was regarded at the time as the vehicle of atheistic teaching; and a comedy, ‘The Pedant Tricked,’ from which Corneille and Molière have freely borrowed ideas.
Cyrano de Bergerac's works "L'Autre Monde: où les États et Empires de la Lune" (The Other World: The States and Empires of the Moon) (published posthumously, 1657) and "Les États et Empires du Soleil" (The States and Empires of the Sun) (1662) are classics of early modern science fiction. In the former, Cyrano travels to the moon using rockets powered by firecrackers and meets the inhabitants. The moon-men have four legs, musical voices, and firearms that shoot game and cook it.


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