The Correspondence of H G Wells

Name: The Correspondence of H G Wells
Brand: PICKERING & CHATTO
Price: 520.25 AUD
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By: H. G. Wells, David Smith (Editor), Patrick Parrinder (Editor)

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Book with Other Items | 1 September 1997

At a Glance

Book with Other Items
1900 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
24.13 x 15.88 x 17.78

Book with Other Items

RRP $735.00

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This collection of H.G. Wells's correspondence draws on over 50 archives and libraries worldwide, including the papers of Wells's daughter by Amber Reeves. The book contains over 2000 letters, a few are business - to publishers, agents and secretaries - but the majority are more personal. Wells's private correspondence extends from letters to President Franklin Roosevelt, and Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and A.J. Balfour to persons such as "Mark Benney", who wrote novels based on his life in the slums and his time in prison. There is correspondence too with his many female friends and lovers, among them, Rebecca West, Eileen Power, Gertrude Stein, Marie Stopes, Lilah MacCarthy, and Dorothy Richardson. For example, a letter from Moura Budberg, with whom Wells had a long-standing affair, which announces that she is pregnant by him and about to have an abortion, reveals how an advocate of birth control is himself caught out. Wells also enjoyed correspondence with the press, particularly during the two World Wars, and with various BBC officials and people who worked on his films. Some of his letters on the controversies of free love, socialism, birth control, the Fabian Society, and the nature of the curriculum of the new London University in the 1890s are included. Interspersed chronologically with Wells's letters is a small selection of about 40 letters to Wells, where letters from him are not extant. Among these are letters from Ray Lankester, Joseph Conrad, C.G. Jung, Trotsky, Hedy Gatternigg (the woman who attempted suicide in Wells's flat), and J.C. Smuts. The letters are arranged in these periods: Volume 1 - 1878-1900; Volume 2 - 1901-1912; Volume 3 - 1913-1930; and Volume 4 - 1930-1946. H.G. Wells's works include "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), "The War of the Worlds" (1898), "The History of Mr Polly" (1910), and "A Short History of the World" (1922).

Industry Reviews

'Smith has done a fine, tactful and prodigiously industrious job... The footnotes are modest and helpful, the indexing sound. And through the pages Wells comes multifariously, outrageously, seductively and toweringly alive.' - Eric Korn, The Guardian 'David C Smith, the editor of this, the first scholarly edition of Wells's correspondence, has drawn extensively on the large and under-exploited Wells archive at the University of Illinois and dozens of other sources to provide an essential resource for the study of this colossal but difficult figure. In four volumes, covering sixty-six years, 2,798 items and hundreds of correspondents, this is an invaluable compendium.' - Simon J James, Times Literary Supplement 'David C Smith's four beautiful volumes, with maybe a fifth still to come, will play a leading part in Wells's proper rehabilitation.' - Michael Foot, Daily Telegraph 'David C Smith has produced a reliable and solid edition of most of the letters... They have been cleanly printed and edited and make a handsome set.' - Philip Hensher, The Spectator 'The British publishers of Wells's letters are responsible for a most satisfactory Anglo-American enterprise, since they have given the eminent American scholar and bibliographer, David C Smith the opportunity of bringing together some forty years of research into the life and correspondence of the founding father of modern science fiction.' - I F Clarke

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