The Early H.G. Wells

The Early H.G. Wells PDF Author: Bernard Bergonzi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442633557
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This is a sensitive study of Wells’ imaginative development during his formative years. It comes at a time when interest in H.G. Wells’ early writing is beginning to revive, owing, no doubt, to the current translation into reality of some aspects of science fiction. Mr. Bergonzi examines Wells’ early fiction, from surviving student writings of the late eighties to 1901 when he published The First Men in the Moon, his last significant scientific romance, and Anticipations, his first systematic non-fictional treatise. The main emphasis of his study falls on the scientific romances of the nineties, which are examined in detail. In addition to literary analysis, relevant source material and reviews, which show how contemporaries received Wells’ work, are noted. Wells’ early attitude to science is shown to have been deeply ambivalent, as is apparent in his successive uses of the Frankenstein archetype. His intellectual attitudes tended towards scepticism and pessimism rather than to the ‘utopian’ optimism associated with his later career. These romances reflect in imaginative and non-discursive form some of the major preoccupations of late-Victorian England: the impact of Darwinism, of Socialism, and an increasing lack of national self-confidence. Mr. Bergonzi sees Wells as essentially a fin de siècle myth-maker, and he argues that it is this aspect of Wells’ work which most requires attention if he is to be remembered in the future. Two early pieces by Wells, now unobtainable elsewhere, are given in an Appendix. One, The Chronic Argonauts, a fragment of a fantastic novel written at the age of 21, is the earliest draft of The Time Machine.

The Early H.G. Wells

The Early H.G. Wells PDF Author: Bernard Bergonzi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442633557
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This is a sensitive study of Wells’ imaginative development during his formative years. It comes at a time when interest in H.G. Wells’ early writing is beginning to revive, owing, no doubt, to the current translation into reality of some aspects of science fiction. Mr. Bergonzi examines Wells’ early fiction, from surviving student writings of the late eighties to 1901 when he published The First Men in the Moon, his last significant scientific romance, and Anticipations, his first systematic non-fictional treatise. The main emphasis of his study falls on the scientific romances of the nineties, which are examined in detail. In addition to literary analysis, relevant source material and reviews, which show how contemporaries received Wells’ work, are noted. Wells’ early attitude to science is shown to have been deeply ambivalent, as is apparent in his successive uses of the Frankenstein archetype. His intellectual attitudes tended towards scepticism and pessimism rather than to the ‘utopian’ optimism associated with his later career. These romances reflect in imaginative and non-discursive form some of the major preoccupations of late-Victorian England: the impact of Darwinism, of Socialism, and an increasing lack of national self-confidence. Mr. Bergonzi sees Wells as essentially a fin de siècle myth-maker, and he argues that it is this aspect of Wells’ work which most requires attention if he is to be remembered in the future. Two early pieces by Wells, now unobtainable elsewhere, are given in an Appendix. One, The Chronic Argonauts, a fragment of a fantastic novel written at the age of 21, is the earliest draft of The Time Machine.

A Scientific Romance

A Scientific Romance PDF Author: Ronald Wright
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307366340
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
In this critically acclaimed and bestselling novel, Ronald Wright has fashioned a story for our times, an unforgettable chronicle of love, plague and time travel in the tradition of Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid's Tale.

A Critical Edition of the War of the Worlds

A Critical Edition of the War of the Worlds PDF Author: Herbert George Wells
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
What is t first believed to be falling stars or harmless meteorites turns out to be cylindrical Martian ships filled with nightmarish, tentacled invaders and their robotic war machines. When curious Englanders come to inspect the massive containers imbedded in the still-smoking countryside, metallic appendages emerge from the pits to kill every living thing in their path with strange heat rays. Then as the surrounding townships slowly devolve into chaos, the Martians begin constructing giant tripod war machines to track down and kill--or capture-- as many of the human "inferior animals" as possible. The nameless narrator, trapped in a house almost completely crushed by the impact of a starship, watches in horror as the seemingly unstoppable Martians build their mechanical armies, kill hundreds with poisonous gas-- and begin snacking on capture humans!

Wells Meets Deleuze

Wells Meets Deleuze PDF Author: Michael Starr
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476668353
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The writings of H.G. Wells have had a profound influence on literary and cinematic depictions of the present and the possible future, and modern science fiction continues to be indebted to his "scientific romances," such as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Interpreted and adapted for more than a century, Wells's texts have resisted easy categorization and are perennial subjects for emerging critical and theoretical perspectives. The author examines Wells's works through the post-structuralist philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Via this critical perspective, concepts now synonymous with science fiction--such as time travel, alien invasion and transhumanism--demonstrate the intrinsic relevance of Wells to the genre and contemporary thought.

Scientific Romance

Scientific Romance PDF Author: Brian Stableford
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486808378
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Before the term "science fiction" was adopted in the 1920s, there were "scientific romances," tales of amazing journeys beyond the limits of the known world. Jules Verne's imaginative novels of the mid-nineteenth century met with international success, whetting the public's appetite for fantastic fiction rooted in actual fact — a craving that H. G. Wells satisfied with his visionary stories. This compilation presents more than two dozen early tales by Verne's and Wells's immediate predecessors, contemporaries, and descendants, focusing on the middle period, when the genre was at its most enterprising and exuberant. Originally published between 1835 and 1924, the stories offer early interpretations of the futuristic societies, rogue stars, rebellious machines, and other now-familiar themes of speculative fiction. Featured authors include Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, H. G. Wells, Jack London, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lesser-known writers. Brian Stableford, a legendary science-fiction author and editor, selected the stories, for which he provides an informative Introduction and brief biographies for each author.

Men Like Gods

Men Like Gods PDF Author: Herbert George Wells
Publisher: Macmillan Company of Canada
ISBN:
Category : Future life
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
The hero of the novel, Mr. Barnstaple, is a depressive journalist working for the newspaper "The Liberal." At the beginning of the story, Barnstaple, as well as a few other Englishmen, are accidentally transported to the parallel world of Utopia. Utopia is like an advanced Earth, although it had been quite similar to Earth in the past in a period known to Utopians as the "Days of Confusion." Utopia is a utopian world: it has a utopian world government, advanced science, and even pathogens have been eliminated and predators are almost tamed. --wikipedia.com.

The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells

The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells PDF Author: Professor Michael R Page
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409479218
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
At the close of the eighteenth century, Erasmus Darwin declared that he would 'enlist the imagination under the banner of science,' beginning, Michael Page argues, a literary narrative on questions of evolution, ecology, and technological progress that would extend from the Romantic through the Victorian periods. Examining the interchange between emerging scientific ideas-specifically evolution and ecology-new technologies, and literature in nineteenth-century Britain, Page shows how British writers from Darwin to H.G. Wells confronted the burgeoning expansion of scientific knowledge that was radically redefining human understanding and experience of the natural world, of human species, and of the self. The wide range of authors covered in Page's ambitious study permits him to explore an impressive array of topics that include the role of the Romantic era in the molding of scientific and cultural perspectives; the engagement of William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley with questions raised by contemporary science; Mary Shelley's conflicted views on the unfolding prospects of modernity; and how Victorian writers like Charles Kingsley, Samuel Butler, and W.H. Hudson responded to the implications of evolutionary theory. Page concludes with the scientific romances of H.G. Wells, to demonstrate how evolutionary fantasies reached the pinnacle of synthesis between evolutionary science and the imagination at the close of the century.

In the Days of the Comet

In the Days of the Comet PDF Author: Herbert George Wells
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Comets
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description


The H. G. Wells Collection

The H. G. Wells Collection PDF Author: H. G. Wells
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
ISBN: 1788880366
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 972

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Book Description
Collected together here are seven of the most iconic novels of H. G. Wells, the father of science fiction himself. With each story, he presents a unique and exciting twist. In The Invisible Man, a scientist's experimentation with visibility goes disastrously wrong. The Time Machine features a traveller recounting his adventures into the future, and The Island of Doctor Moreau explores the terrifying boundaries of human and animal morality. Other stories included are The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, When the Sleeper Wakes and The World Set Free. This array of thrilling stories ranges from scenes of alien invasions to visions of dystopian futures.

The War of the Worlds: Large Print

The War of the Worlds: Large Print PDF Author: H. G. Wells
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781091588417
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..." So begins H. G. Wells' classic novel in which Martian lifeforms take over planet Earth. As the Martians emerge, they construct giant killing machines - armed with heatrays - that are impervious to attack. Advancing upon London they destroy everything in their path. Everything, except the few humans they collect in metal traps. Victorian England is a place in which the steam engine is state-of-the-art technology and powered flight is just a dream. Mankind is helpless against the killing machines from Mars, and soon the survivors are left living in a new stone age. Includes the original Warwick Goble illustrations.