Luna n.

the Moon

  • 1876 E. Roth tr. J. Verne All Around the Moon v. 90 page image bibliography

    If the Moon is inhabited at all, her inhabitants must have appeared several thousand years before the advent of Man on our Earth, for there seems to be very little doubt that Luna is considerably older than Terra in her present state.

  • 1931 R. Z. Gallun Lunar Chrysalis in Amazing Stories Sept. 528/2 page image Raymond Z. Gallun bibliography

    I never regretted my decision to be one of the first men to visit Luna.

  • 1934 A. Merritt Last Poet & Robots in E. S. Rabkin Science Fiction: Historical Anthol. (1983) 263

    When the message from Luna, outlining the course to be followed and setting the starting date, arrived, the space fleet was ready to leave.

  • 1937 J. D. Clark Minus Planet in Astounding Stories Apr. 96/2 page image John D. Clark, Ph.D. bibliography

    Some fifty of them were drilled, most of them parallel, but a few at divergent angles, to act as the steering mechanism of the huge space ship into which Luna was being converted.

  • 1937 'E. Andrews' in Amazing Stories Oct. 136 (heading) page image Frederik Pohl bibliography

    Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna.

  • 1939 I. Asimov in Astounding Science Fiction July 45/2 Isaac Asimov

    Curiously enough, there was little resentment of the fact. Men were impressed and awed; the crowd whispered and cast inquisitive glances at the dim crescent of Luna, scarcely seen in the bright sunlight. Over all, an uneasy pall of silence, the silence of indecision, lay.

  • 1942 T. Sturgeon in Astounding Science Fiction Feb. 88/1 Theodore Sturgeon

    Xantippe was a strangely dull planet, even this close to its star. She shone dead silver, like a moonlit corpse’s flesh. She was wrinkled and patched, and—perhaps it was an etheric disturbance—she seemed to pulsate slowly from pole to pole. She wasn’t quite round; more nearly an ovoid, with the smaller end toward Betelgeuse! She was between two and three times the size of Luna.

  • 1945 ‘M. Leinster’ in Astounding Science Fiction June 120/2 Murray Leinster

    Freddy Holmes, newly commissioned and assigned to the detector station on Luna which keeps track of asteroids and meteor streams, had discovered a small object coming in over Neptune.

  • 1970 P. Anderson Tau Zero (1973) 19 Poul Anderson bibliography

    He entered kindergarten two years before the first maser messages from it reached Farside Station on Luna.

  • 1979 J. Varley Titan (1987) 8 John Varley

    They felt the money could be better spent on Earth, on Luna, and at the L5 colonies.

  • 1991 J. Varley Steel Beach (1993) 95 John Varley bibliography

    I felt oddly at peace, lying in the moonlit darkness (there was a charming notion: Luna looked tiny and dim compared to a full Earth) listening to the rain falling on the canvas.

  • 1993 P. Anderson Harvest of Stars (1994) 238 Poul Anderson bibliography

    It left the ship in the vicinity of Earth, the ship probably being bound for Luna.

  • 1999 A. Thomson Through Alien Eyes (2000) ii. 71 Amy Thomson bibliography

    Dr. Louise Caisson…previously served as a researcher at the Center for Contagious Diseases on Luna.

  • 2001 Locus June 17/1

    The glamour of early life on Luna was wearing off for Max.


Research requirements

antedating 1876

Earliest cite

in Edward Roth's translation of Jules Verne's All Around the Moon

Research History
The sense of Luna as a personification of the moon is in the OED with cites back to 1529.

Mike Christie submitted a 1945 cite from Murray Leinster's "The Ethical Equations".
Bill Seabrook located and Mike Christie confirmed a 1942 cite from Theodore Sturgeon's "Medusa".
Imran Ghory submitted a cite from a reprint of Isaac Asimov's "Trends"; Mike Christie confirmed the 1939 original appearance.
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 1937 cite from "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", a poem by Frederik Pohl.
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 1931 cite from Raymond Gallun's "The Lunar Chrysalis".
Clive Shergold submitted an 1876 cite from Edward Roth's translation of Jules Verne's "All Around the Moon".

Last modified 2023-07-31 15:23:12
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.