The Wasp — December 25, 1879 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Beyond the Moon! A Christmas Lie" by Jules Verne This page presents a satirical story crediting Jules Verne with an "impossible tale," likely mocking both Verne's imaginative science fiction and the magazine's claim to expose literary hoaxes. The text is a first-person narrative describing a fantastical journey through space, featuring encounters with impossible atmospheric conditions, strange creatures, and extraordinary phenomena. The satire appears to target Verne's popular science-fiction novels (particularly *From the Earth to the Moon*, published 1865) by presenting an absurdly exaggerated adventure as if it were a discovered manuscript. The magazine presents this as exposing a fictional "Christmas lie"—suggesting both Verne's tall tales and the gullibility of readers who believed such fantastic narratives were plausible.