Fiction. Hans Phaall, a bankrupt bellows-mender from Rotterdam, thinks up an ingenious scheme to escape from his dreary existence. He constructs a balloon that will carry him all the way to the moon. First published in 1835, when Poe was twenty-five years old and virtually unknown, the tale - much admired by Jules Verne - describes an extraordinary adventure in which Poe's learning and imagination form a hallucinatory mix of science and fiction. For that reason HANS PHAALL is looked upon by many as the first true science-fiction story.