The Consolidator or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon, is a 1705 satirical fantasy/science fiction novel by English author Daniel Defoe, of Robinson Crusoe fame.
As described by Karen Severud Cook in her article "Daniel Defoe's 1705 Fantasy about Chinese Mapmakers on the Moon", the novel follows the story of the main character, an Englishman, traveling to the moon, which is inhabited by an alien race called the Lunarians. The Lunarians "have traveled between the Moon and the Earth over a long period of time and have shared their technological marvels with the Chinese", and the Consolidator ends up meeting a Lunarian philosopher who "show[s] him many fascinating things [including] special magnifying glasses that enable the Lunarian people to view the Earth and to perceive the iniquities and absurdities of human life and governments." Cook points out that The Consolidator "belongs to a literary tradition using life on the Moon as a device for pointing out earthly flaws, a type of European literature that dates back at least to the 16th century."
In addition to this literary tradition, Defoe's upbringing and education also influenced certain themes in The Consolidator. Defoe's parents were Presbyterian dissenters, and sent him to be educated at the Academy of Dissenters in Newington Green. The Academy was at that time run by Oxford-educated Charles Morton, who had planned to enter the ministry before being forced out of that plan by religious persecution. At the Academy, Defoe studied science through experimentation, which brought him in contact with the optical devices (telescopes, microscopes, etc.) featured in some of his works. Also, as Cook describes in her article, "The influence of Baconian science on Defoe is evident in his belief that the practical application of science -- the use of technology and manufacture to transform natural resources into useful goods for commerce --
results in harmonious social systems, not only operating within individual nations but also forming a world-encircling international network of trade."
The Consolidator also draws heavily from Defoe's adult academic and professional interests. Defoe himself was a merchant involved in several kinds of trade over the years, and was also a spy/Secret Service agent hired to collect information for Robert Harley, Lord Oxford. Given his professional background, Defoe had an appreciation for and understand of cartography (mapmaking), especially thematic cartography, which appears not only in The Consolidator but in many of his later works as well.
The title of The Consolidator, which also lends its name to the feather-covered rocket ship in which the main character travels to the moon, "was inspired by a political crisis in November 1704, one which nearly ousted from power the moderate Tory government of Robert Harley", the aforementioned Lord for whom Defoe worked. The crisis revolved around the issue of civil liberties for Protestant dissenters.
