Book description
A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like
trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During
his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him
the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his
trance he is horrified to discover that the money accumulated in his
name is being used to maintain a hierarchal society in which most are
poor, and more than a third of all people are enslaved. Oppressed and
uneducated, the masses cling desperately to one dream - that the sleeper
will awake, and lead them all to freedom.
H. G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist, who published
more than a hundred books, including novels, histories, essays and
programmes for world regeneration. Wells's prophetic imagination was
first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction, but later he
became an apostle of socialism, science and progress. His
controversial views on sexual equality and the shape of a truly
developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today. He was,
in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'.
Patrick Parrinder has written on H. G. Wells, science fiction, James
Joyce and the history of the English novel. Since 1986 he has been
Professor of English at the University of Reading.
Andy Sawyer is a Librarian at the University of Sheffield with a
particular interest in science fiction.
