Select Conversations with an Uncle
First edition title page | |
Author | H. G. Wells |
---|---|
Original title | Select Conversations with an Uncle (Now Extinct) and Two Other Reminiscences |
Language | English |
Genre | Essays |
Publisher | John Lane |
Publication date | 1895 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Pages | 117 |
Preceded by | Honors Physiography |
Followed by | The Time Machine: An Invention |
Select Conversations with an Uncle, published in 1895, was H. G. Wells's first literary publication in book form.[1] It consists of reports of twelve conversations between a fictional witty uncle[2] who has returned to London from South Africa with "a certain affluence," as well as two other conversations (one on aestheticism that takes place in a train, titled "A Misunderstood Artist," and another on physiognomy, titled "The Man with a Nose").
Themes
The principal themes of the conversations between a Wells-like character named "George" and his uncle are fashion, the inevitability of human "discomfort" due to passing social movements, the resemblance of ideals to interior decoration, the art of being photographed, the social basis of taste in art and music, the state of being engaged, the agony of having to listen to a near neighbor playing the piano, tricycles, social novels, and the effects of marriage.
Contents
These are the short stories contained in this collection showing the periodicals in which they were first published.
- "Of Conversation and The Anatomy of Fashion"
- "The Theory of The Perpetual Discomfort of Humanity"
- "The Use of Ideals"
- "The Art of Being Photographed"
- "Bagshot's Mural Decorations"
- "On Social Music"
- "The Joys of Being Engaged"
- "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"
- "On a Tricycle"
- "An Unsuspected Masterpiece"
- "The Great Change"
- "The Pains of Marriage"
- "A Misunderstood Artist" (Pall Mall Gazette, 29 October 1894)
- "The Man With a Nose" (Pall Mall Gazette, 6 February 1894)
Publication
Select Conversations with an Uncle was published in a limited edition by John Lane in a series called "The Mayfair Set" and in New York by Merriam. The volume was dedicated to "To my dearest and best friend, R.A.C.," which is a misprint either for R.A. Gregory, Wells's friend who later became the editor of Nature between 1919 and 1939, or for Wells's wife, Amy Catherine Robbins (better known as "Jane"); it was published the day before The Time Machine.[3] The pieces in the book were drawn from thirty or more articles by Wells published in the Pall Mall Gazette beginning in 1893.[4]
Reception
Wells's "uncle" character had been "very well received" in the Pall Mall Gazette,[5] but not all reviews of the volume were favorable. The Athenaeum panned it as "a dreary and foolish assemblage of commonplace ideas expressed in stilted phraseology."[6]
References
- ^ Select Conversations with an Uncle was preceded by two textbooks published in 1893: Text Book of Biology (Clive, 2 vols.) and (with R.A. Gregory) Honours Physiography (Hughes).
- ^ Based on Alfred Williams, who had been a teacher in the West Indies and whom Wells knew briefly when in 1880 he became briefly the head of a village school at Wookey, in Somerset, before his credentials were discovered to be fraudulent. Wells later said that Williams "gave me a new angle from which to regard the universe. I had not hitherto considered that it might be an essentially absurd affair, good only to laugh at." Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, H.G. Wells: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, 1973), pp. 35, 105.
- ^ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 102.
- ^ Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, H.G. Wells: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, 1973), pp. 95n., 105.
- ^ David C. Smith, H.G. Wells: Desperately Human: A Biography (Yale University Press, 1986), p. 36.
- ^ Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 102.
External links
- The complete short fiction of H. G. Wells at Standard Ebooks
- Select Conversations with an Uncle at Faded Page (Canada)
- Select Conversations with an Uncle public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- v
- t
- e
- The Time Machine (1895)
- The Wonderful Visit (1895)
- The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
- The Wheels of Chance (1896)
- The Invisible Man (1897)
- The War of the Worlds (1898)
- When the Sleeper Wakes (1899)
- Love and Mr Lewisham (1900)
- The First Men in the Moon (1901)
- The Sea Lady (1902)
- The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)
- Kipps (1905)
- A Modern Utopia (1905)
- In the Days of the Comet (1906)
- The War in the Air (1908)
- Tono-Bungay (1909)
- Ann Veronica (1909)
- The History of Mr Polly (1910)
- The Sleeper Awakes (1910)
- The New Machiavelli (1911)
- Marriage (1912)
- The Passionate Friends (1913)
- The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914)
- The World Set Free (1914)
- Bealby (1915)
- Boon (1915)
- The Research Magnificent (1915)
- Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916)
- The Soul of a Bishop (1917)
- Joan and Peter (1918)
- The Undying Fire (1919)
- The Secret Places of the Heart (1922)
- Men Like Gods (1923)
- The Dream (1924)
- Christina Alberta's Father (1925)
- The World of William Clissold (1926)
- Meanwhile (1927)
- Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928)
- The Autocracy of Mr. Parham (1930)
- The Bulpington of Blup (1932)
- The Shape of Things to Come (1933)
- The Croquet Player (1936)
- Brynhild (1937)
- Star Begotten (1937)
- The Camford Visitation (1937)
- Apropos of Dolores (1938)
- The Brothers (1938)
- The Holy Terror (1939)
- Babes in the Darkling Wood (1940)
- All Aboard for Ararat (1940)
- You Can't Be Too Careful (1941)
- Anticipations
- Certain Personal Matters
- Crux Ansata
- The Discovery of the Future
- An Englishman Looks at the World
- Experiment in Autobiography
- The Fate of Man
- First and Last Things
- Floor Games
- The Future in America
- God the Invisible King
- In the Fourth Year
- Little Wars
- Mankind in the Making
- Mind at the End of Its Tether
- Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History"
- The New America
- The New World Order
- New Worlds for Old
- The Open Conspiracy
- The Outline of History
- Russia in the Shadows
- The Science of Life
- A Short History of the World
- The Story of a Great Schoolmaster
- This Misery of Boots
- Travels of a Republican Radical in Search of Hot Water
- War and the Future
- The Way the World Is Going
- The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind
- World Brain
- A Year of Prophesying
- "Æpyornis Island"
- "The Argonauts of the Air"
- "The Beautiful Suit"
- "The Chronic Argonauts"
- "The Cone"
- "The Country of the Blind"
- "The Crystal Egg"
- "A Deal in Ostriches"
- "The Diamond Maker"
- "The Door in the Wall"
- "A Dream of Armageddon"
- "The Empire of the Ants"
- "In the Abyss"
- "The Land Ironclads"
- "Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation"
- "The Lord of the Dynamos"
- "The Man Who Could Work Miracles"
- "The New Accelerator"
- "The Pearl of Love"
- "The Plattner Story"
- "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper"
- "The Red Room"
- "The Sea Raiders"
- "The Star"
- "The Stolen Body"
- "A Story of the Days to Come"
- "A Story of the Stone Age"
- "Triumphs of a Taxidermist"
- "The Truth About Pyecraft"
- "A Vision of Judgment"
- Things to Come (1936)
- The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937)
- Political views
- G. P. Wells
- Anthony West (son)
- Joseph Wells (father)
- Simon Wells (great-grandson)
- H. G. Wells Society
- Lunar crater
- Time After Time (1979 film)