Jules Verne 
From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon [EPUB ebook] 

‘From the Earth to the Moon’ and its sequel, ‘Round the Moon’, were published nearly a century before the Apollo missions. Suspenseful, humorous, and prophetic, these captivating adventure stories sparked mankind’s enduring fascination with space travel. A team of nineteenth-century American engineers builds a rocket to the moon in this visionary novel.
Jules Verne, a French author, and a true visionary, foresaw the skyscraper, the submarine, and the airplane, among many other inventions, and is now regarded as one of the fathers of science fiction.
During the Civil War, the members of the Baltimore Gun Club delighted themselves by designing artillery the likes of which the world had never seen. But when the South eventually surrenders, the gun club languishes, until its president, Impey Barbicane, conceives of a preposterous project that must be attempted: to build a gun large enough to fire a rocket to the moon. From raising the money to casting the cannon to readying it to fire, the gun club overcomes one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after another.