H. G. Wells
1) Tono-Bungay
Tono-Bungay, published in 1909, is a semi-autobiographical novel by H. G. Wells. Though it has some fantastical and absurdist elements, it is a realist novel rather than one of Well’s “scientific romances.”
The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of George Ponderevo, the son of the housekeeper at a large estate. He is made to feel
...2) Marriage
Marriage features two protagonists: Marjorie Pope, the oldest daughter of a carriage manufacturer whose business has been ruined by the advent of the automobile, and R.A.G. Trafford, a physicist specializing in crystallography whom she marries against the wishes of her family at the age of 21. The novel traces the history of their relationship, which begins when an early airplane Trafford is piloting crashes into the garden of a house
...The Island of Doctor Moreau is the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man who finds himself on a mysterious island full of humanoid animal creatures. He comes to find that these creatures are the work of Dr. Moreau, a man who experiments in vivisection, and his assistant Montgomery.
The story of Dr. Moreau’s island began as an article in the January, 1895 issue of Saturday Review. It
...The Sleeper Awakes is H. G. Wells's wildly imaginative story of London in the twenty-second century and the man who by accident becomes owner and master of the world. In 1897 a Victorian gentleman falls into a sleep from which he cannot be waked. During his two centuries of slumber he becomes the Sleeper, the most well known and powerful person in the world. All property is bequeathed to the Sleeper to be administered by a Council on his behalf.
...Excerpt:
The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton,
...Sometimes titled The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution.
The book is, in Wells's words, a "scheme to thrust forward and establish a human control over the destinies of life and liberate it from its present dangers, uncertainties and miseries." It proposes that largely as the result of scientific progress, a common vision of a world "politically, socially and economically unified"
...11) The Holy Terror
The Holy Terror is a 1939 work by H. G. Wells that is in part an analysis of fascism and in part a utopian novel. (from Wikipedia)
"The Chronic Argonauts" is an 1888 short story by the British science-fiction writer H. G. Wells. It features an inventor who builds a time machine and travels in time using it, and it pre-dates Wells's best-selling 1895 time travel novel The Time Machine by seven years.
Le savant Griffin, après 15 ans de recherches et des dépenses qui l'ont ruiné, invente une formule pour devenir invisible. Après avoir fait l'expérience sur le chat de sa voisine, il décide d'expérimenter la formule sur lui même, notamment pour fuir ses créanciers (loyer non payé pour cause de manque d'argent et accusé de vivisection sur le chat de sa voisine; ce qui est faux). Il devient alors totalement invisible.
14) The Magic Shop
I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket trick, packs of cards that looked all right, and all that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to the window, and so conducted himself that there
...The Croquet Player is a 1936 novella by H. G. Wells, "a sort of ghost story." It has been called "a short allegory written under the stimulus of the Spanish War." Georgie, a gentleman with "soft hands and an ineffective will," is dependent on his wealthy aunt, Miss Frobisher. He is "refreshingly unimaginative." Croquet is his and his aunt's "especial gift," and he and his aunt play
...Excerpt:
"There's a man in that shop," said the Doctor, "who has been in Fairyland." "Nonsense!" I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window.
Mr. Brisher's Treasure is a humorous tale about a man who finds a chest of buried treasure while making a rockery for his future father-in-law, but circumstances repeatedly and hilariously conspire against him as he tries in vain secretly to retrieve it. From Audible.
Excerpt:
The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, looked up at me, and put
...The narrator discusses the case of Gottfried Plattner, a schoolteacher in the south of England. He establishes the known facts: the unsymmetrical parts of his body are opposite from the usual way round, and his unsymmetrical facial features are the reverse of what are seen on his portrayal in an old photograph. "The curious inversion of Plattner's right and left sides is proof that he has moved out of our space into what is called the
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