What if a meteorite dug up by a Colorado oil prospector turned out to contain a mummified body believed to originate on Mars? Initially written in 1864 as a hoax by the science correspondent of a French newspaper, An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars immediately caught the attention of Jules Verne's publisher who released it in an expanded book version. Henri de Parville, a renowned 19th century scientific journalist, broke new ground regarding the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. By keeping his straightforward narrative to a minimum, he achieved a striking combination of quasi-non-fiction and speculative ambition, developing a theory of life and the universe that was remarkably ahead of his time.