 First edition with Rothenstein drawing for vols 1, 3 [1] | |
| Author | H. G. Wells |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | William Rothenstein (vols. 1, 3) David Low (vol. 2) [1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Benn Brothers |
Publication date | 1926 |
| Pages | 797 |
The World of William Clissold is a 1926 novel by H. G. Wells published initially in three volumes. The first volume was published in September to coincide with Wells's sixtieth birthday, and the second and third volumes followed at monthly intervals. [2]
As its subtitle suggests, The World of William Clissold is not a conventional novel. Only slightly more than half its pages are devoted to events in the eponymous protagonist's life; the others are devoted to extended discussions of general ideas, "everything as it is reflected in my brain." [3]
The World of William Clissold is written in the first person, except for a "Note before the Title Page" by Wells and an "Epilogue" by William Clissold's brother, Dickon. The rest of the novel is divided into six books.
In "Book the First: The Frame of the Picture" William Clissold describes his general worldview, describing his loss of religious faith and view of human life as "The Adventure of Mankind;" this part includes a description of a meeting with Carl Gustav Jung, whom Wells had met in 1924. [4] The first part of this book is said to have been written in his brother's London abode; the second part is in William Clissold's house in Provence. "Book the Second: The Story of the Clissolds—My Father and the Flow of Things" recounts the upbringing of William Clissold and his brother Dickon, which was violently disrupted by the suicide of their businessman father, Richard Clissold, after he was convicted and sentenced to prison for fraud; it includes long passages on "systems in history," the ideas of Karl Marx, and the development of the institution of money. "Book the Third: The Story of the Clissolds—Essence of Dickon" tells the story of his brother's family life and innovative career in advertising, and includes extensive commentary on the historical importance of World War I.
"Book the Fourth: The Story of the Clissolds—Tangle of Desires" focuses on William Clissold's love life, telling the story of his unsuccessful marriage to Clara and his affairs with Sirrie Evans and with Helen, a famous actress, and culminates in his meeting Clementina, a young Scotch-Greek woman who becomes the final love of his life. "Book the Fifth: The Story of the Clissolds—The Next Phase" is almost exclusively devoted to developing the notion of a worldwide "open conspiracy" of business leaders, politicians, scientists, and intellectuals to establish a "World Republic" devoted to the betterment of human life (a dominant notion in Wells's later life that is developed at length here for the first time [5] ). "Book the Sixth: The Story of the Clissolds—Venus as Evening Star" is an extended analysis of the relations between men and women, and culminates in his decision to marry Clementina. But as the epilogue recounts, the death of William Clissold and Clementina a few days later, on 24 Apr 1926, in an automobile accident, prevents the realisation of William Clissold's plans.
At 797 pages, The World of William Clissold is H.G. Wells's longest novel. It is dedicated to Odette Keun, Wells's lover from 1924 to 1933 and with whom Wells lived in Lou Pidou, a house they built together in Grasse, France; the text often evokes the countryside of southern France. [6]
Wells received a £3000 advance for the novel, and Benn spent £1500 advertising it. The novel received more than a hundred reviews and was a commercial success. But critical reactions to the work were often negative and sometimes scathing, though John Maynard Keynes, George Bernard Shaw, Graham Wallas, and H.L. Mencken were appreciative. Few took the novel seriously as a work of art, seeing it instead as an exposition of "Wellsian philosophy." [7]
Biographer David Smith called The World of William Clissold "a watershed book in H.G. Wells's fiction," marking a turn to increasingly didactive narratives. [7]
The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution was published in 1928 by H. G. Wells, when he was 62 years old. It was revised and expanded in 1930 with the additional subtitle A Second Version of This Faith of a Modern Man Made More Explicit and Plain. In 1931 a further revised edition appeared titled What Are We to Do with Our Lives?. A final version appeared in 1933 under its original title. Many of its ideas are anticipated in Wells's 1926 novel The World of William Clissold.
Tono-Bungay is a realist semiautobiographical novel written by H. G. Wells and first published in book form in 1909. It has been called "arguably his most artistic book". It had been serialised before book publication, both in the United States, in The Popular Magazine, beginning in the issue of September 1908, and in Britain, in The English Review, beginning in the magazine's first issue in December 1908.
The Science of Life is a book written by H. G. Wells, Julian Huxley and G. P. Wells, published in three volumes by The Waverley Publishing Company Ltd in 1929–30, giving a popular account of all major aspects of biology as known in the 1920s. It has been called "the first modern textbook of biology" and "the best popular introduction to the biological sciences". Wells's most recent biographer notes that The Science of Life "is not quite as dated as one might suppose".
The Dream is a 1924 novel by H. G. Wells about a man from a Utopian future who dreams the entire life of an Englishman from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, Harry Mortimer Smith. As in other novels of this period, in The Dream Wells represents the present as an "Age of Confusion" from which humanity will be able to emerge with the help of science and common sense.
A Modern Utopia is a 1905 novel by H. G. Wells.
Mr. Britling Sees It Through is H.G. Wells's "masterpiece of the wartime experience in south eastern England." The novel was published in September 1916.
The Soul of a Bishop is a 1917 novel by H. G. Wells.
Meanwhile is a 1927 novel by H. G. Wells set in an Italian villa early in 1926.
The Story of a Great Schoolmaster is a 1924 biography of Frederick William Sanderson (1857–1922) by H. G. Wells. It is the only biography Wells wrote. Sanderson was a personal friend, having met Wells in 1914 when his sons George Philip ('Gip'), born in 1901, and Frank Richard, born in 1903, became pupils at Oundle School, of which Sanderson was headmaster from 1892 to 1922. After Sanderson died while giving a lecture at University College London at which he was introduced by Wells, the famous author agreed to help produce a biography to raise money for the school. But in December 1922, after disagreements emerged with Sanderson's widow about his approach to the subject, Wells withdrew from the official biography and published his own work separately.
The New Machiavelli is a 1911 novel by H. G. Wells that was serialised in The English Review in 1910. Because its plot notoriously derived from Wells's affair with Amber Reeves and satirised Beatrice and Sidney Webb, it was "the literary scandal of its day".
The Future in America: A Search After Realities is a 1906 travel essay by H. G. Wells recounting his impressions from the first of half a dozen visits he would make to the United States. The book consists of fifteen chapters and a concluding "envoy".
First and Last Things is a 1908 work of philosophy by H. G. Wells setting forth his beliefs in four "books" entitled "Metaphysics," "Of Belief," "Of General Conduct," and "Some Personal Things." Parts of the book were published in the Independent Magazine in July and August 1908. Wells revised the book extensively in 1917, in response to his religious conversion, but later published a further revision in 1929 that restored much of the book to its earlier form. Its main intellectual influences are Darwinism and certain German thinkers Wells had read, such as August Weismann. The pragmatism of William James, who had become a friend of Wells, was also an influence.
An Englishman Looks at the World is a 1914 essay collection by H. G. Wells containing journalistic pieces written between 1909 and 1914. The book consists of twenty-six pieces ranging from five to sixty-two pages in length. An American edition was published the same year by Harper and Brothers under the title Social Forces in England and America.
Bealby: A Holiday is a 1915 comic novel by H. G. Wells.
The Undying Fire, a 1919 novel by H. G. Wells, is a modern retelling of the story of Job. Like the Book of Job, it consists of a prologue in heaven, an exchange of speeches with four visitors, a dialogue between the protagonist and God, and an epilogue in which the protagonist's fortunes are restored. The novel is dedicated "to All Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses and every Teacher in the World."
The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind by H. G. Wells is the final work of a trilogy of which the first volumes were The Outline of History (1919–1920) and The Science of Life (1929). Wells conceived of the three parts of his trilogy as, respectively, "a survey of history, of the science of life, and of existing conditions." Intended as an unprecedented "picture of all mankind to-day" in all its manifold activities, he called it "the least finished work . . . because it is the most novel." He hoped the volumes would play a role in the open conspiracy to establish a progressive world government that he had been promoting since the mid-1920s.
The Bulpington of Blup is a 1932 novel by H. G. Wells. It is a character study analyzing the psychological sources of resistance to Wellsian ideology, and was influenced by Wells's acquaintance with Carl Gustav Jung and his ideas.
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.
Certain Personal Matters is an 1897 collection of essays selected by H. G. Wells from among the many short essays and ephemeral pieces he had written since 1893. The book consists of thirty-nine pieces ranging from about eight hundred to two thousand words in length. A one-shilling reprint was issued in 1901 by T. Fisher Unwin.
Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought, generally known as Anticipations, was written by H.G. Wells at the age of 34. He later called the book, which became a bestseller, "the keystone to the main arch of my work." His most recent biographer, however, calls the volume "both the starting point and the lowest point in Wells's career as a social thinker."