author
Francis Godwin
1562–1633
Best known for imagining one of English literature’s earliest journeys to the Moon, this bishop and historian wrote with a mix of curiosity, learning, and quiet daring. His work links Renaissance scholarship with the beginnings of science fiction.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1562 in Hannington, Northamptonshire, Francis Godwin was an English churchman, historian, and writer who later became Bishop of Llandaff and then Bishop of Hereford. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and built a career in the Church of England while also developing a strong reputation as a scholar.
He is remembered today both for historical writing and for literary imagination. His Annales of England helped establish him as a serious historian, but his lasting fame often comes from The Man in the Moone, a work published after his death in 1638. The book describes a voyage to the Moon and is widely seen as an early landmark in English speculative fiction.
That blend of faith, scholarship, and invention makes his work especially interesting now. He wrote at a time when older religious and historical traditions were meeting new ways of thinking about the world, and his writing still feels like a glimpse of ideas stretching toward the future.