Layers of (Speculative) History

[gfish]

I'm currently reading Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon. I've had the copy so long that I don't remember where it came from, it's just one of those books that I've always had. It was printed in 1965, on its one hundredth anniversary. this is the front cover -- a nice 60s illustration of an 1860s concept. More amusing is the blurb on the back cover, particularly the last line. It frames the book as a neat little slice of history, stuck somewhere in between science-fiction and science-fact.