The Ship That Sailed to Mars

"Although it was difficult to believe, the Old Man had not always been old, and in his dim, forgotten youth, he had said “I will go to Mars; sailing by way of the Moon, and the more friendly planets.” But those around him, Scientists, and Astronomers some cried out in scorn, “Have we not ever taught you that Mars is thirty thousand miles away, and nothing could ever live on a journey there?’ And they left him, muttering in their beards as they went, for they had no faith, nor any belief, in Fairies.


Therefore he had taken his leave of men, and men’s ways, and he had spent his long lifetime in a sleepy office in a dull, dark street; passing his waking hours in strange dreams, or poring over weird and ancient books, and always and ever planning a ship to sail to Mars.


By reason of his faith, the Faries came to him, and he chose those with cunning skill as craftsmen to help him and started a shipyard.


All round him in his office were dusty fragments of his glittering, ineffectual dreams, and here and there little fragile machines coiled their fairy springs, or spun unheeded their golden wheels."


So begins this beautifully illustrated classic.