The Sun and the Moon The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York

by Goodman, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780465019007
• ISBN10: 0465019005
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-01
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

This work tells the delightful, entertaining, and surprisingly true story of how, in the summer of 1835, a series of articles in the "Sun" newspaper convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited. "The Sun and the Moon" offers the remarkable true story of the hoax that bewildered 19th-century America.

Author Biography

Matthew Goodman's nonfiction writing has appeared in The Forward, The American Scholar, Harvard Review, Brill's Content, and The Utne Reader. He is the author of Jewish Food. The World at Table. He lives in New York City with his wife and children.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Man on the Moon	p. 1
The Sun
Benjamin Day's Whistling Boy	p. 17
The News of the City	p. 33
Bearer of the Falcon Crest	p. 49
The Atrocious Impositions of Matthias	p. 65
"The Evil Spirit of the Times"	p. 83
The Prince of Ivy Island	p. 97
Strange Attractions	p. 115
The Moon
Celestial Discoveries	p. 131
A Passage to the Moon	p. 147
"If This Account Is True, It Is Most Enormously Wonderful"	p. 165
The Picturesque Beauty of the Moon	p. 185
"The Astronomical Hoax Explained"	p. 199
Moonshine	p. 217
Monck Mason's Flying Machine	p. 233
"Joice Heth Is Not Dead"	p. 251
The Best Self-Hoaxed Man in New York	p. 265
Epilogue That Tyranny Shall Be No Longer	p. 283
Acknowledgments	p. 299
Notes	p. 301
Selected Bibliography	p. 327
Index	p. 335
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