What do you think?
Rate this book
The Door in the Wall / The Flowering of the Strange Orchid
• Featuring a critical foreword by editor Colin Waters
• A carefully selected pair of short stories never before anthologised together
• Part of The Machine Book of Weird; a curated series of unsettling short stories, chosen to explore the condition of lockdown in existing literature
We cannot think about the future without first thinking of HG Wells. And yet we miss a huge amount of our understanding of him without understanding also the urgency of his imagination and his profound sympathy for those for whom imagination is constrained.
The Door in the Wall &The Flowering of the Strange Orchid is published as part of The Machine Book of an ongoing series of short stories that explores the consequence of our sudden interior turn. We believe that the literature of the lockdown has already been written. A century ago, writers throughout the supposedly civilised world realised their once familiar, domestic world had changed profoundly and began to describe it in singular unsettling ways. In a rare act of literary criticism, Freud used the word ‘unheimlich’ to describe the disquieting, unsettling short fiction of his time. As has been noted by the critic Mark Fisher and others however, Freud structured his inquiry into this fiction on the stories themselves, unable to create a theory which superseded them.
What we might now call ‘the weird’ instead of the unheimlich is again a central concern of our locked down culture. We are all too aware that our interior reality — strangely similar to the anxious languor of the Edwardian drawing room — can be viewed suddenly and shockingly from the outside. (Indeed, it must be.) Not only have these stories endured, they are now more relevant than ever. We have collected the best of them in pairs — the funny, the horrific and the simply disturbing — to offer insight and commentary on the strange world we are now living in.
• A carefully selected pair of short stories never before anthologised together
• Part of The Machine Book of Weird; a curated series of unsettling short stories, chosen to explore the condition of lockdown in existing literature
We cannot think about the future without first thinking of HG Wells. And yet we miss a huge amount of our understanding of him without understanding also the urgency of his imagination and his profound sympathy for those for whom imagination is constrained.
The Door in the Wall &The Flowering of the Strange Orchid is published as part of The Machine Book of an ongoing series of short stories that explores the consequence of our sudden interior turn. We believe that the literature of the lockdown has already been written. A century ago, writers throughout the supposedly civilised world realised their once familiar, domestic world had changed profoundly and began to describe it in singular unsettling ways. In a rare act of literary criticism, Freud used the word ‘unheimlich’ to describe the disquieting, unsettling short fiction of his time. As has been noted by the critic Mark Fisher and others however, Freud structured his inquiry into this fiction on the stories themselves, unable to create a theory which superseded them.
What we might now call ‘the weird’ instead of the unheimlich is again a central concern of our locked down culture. We are all too aware that our interior reality — strangely similar to the anxious languor of the Edwardian drawing room — can be viewed suddenly and shockingly from the outside. (Indeed, it must be.) Not only have these stories endured, they are now more relevant than ever. We have collected the best of them in pairs — the funny, the horrific and the simply disturbing — to offer insight and commentary on the strange world we are now living in.
35 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 17, 2020
3 people want to read
About the author
H.G. Wells
5,455 books11.2k followersHerbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).
Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.
He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.
More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...
http://www.online-literature.com/well...
http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.
He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.
More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...
http://www.online-literature.com/well...
http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 11, 2023
"The Door in the Wall" by H.G. Wells is a short story that, unfortunately, falls short of expectations. The premise of a young man haunted by a recurring dream is intriguing, but the execution of the story falls flat. The characters are one-dimensional and the writing is uninspired, lacking the vivid imagery and thought-provoking themes that are typically present in Wells' work.
Additionally, the ending is unsatisfactory and fails to provide any meaningful resolution to the story's central conflict. The themes of regret and loss are hinted at, but are not fully explored, leaving the reader feeling unsatisfied.
Overall, "The Door in the Wall" is a disappointing work that fails to live up to the high standards set by Wells' other writing. If you're a fan of Wells' work or are looking for a thought-provoking and emotionally charged short story, you may want to look elsewhere.
And of course I will once again go out of my way to mention that along with this book The Red Room also exists
Additionally, the ending is unsatisfactory and fails to provide any meaningful resolution to the story's central conflict. The themes of regret and loss are hinted at, but are not fully explored, leaving the reader feeling unsatisfied.
Overall, "The Door in the Wall" is a disappointing work that fails to live up to the high standards set by Wells' other writing. If you're a fan of Wells' work or are looking for a thought-provoking and emotionally charged short story, you may want to look elsewhere.
And of course I will once again go out of my way to mention that along with this book The Red Room also exists
November 23, 2023
The Flowering of the Strange Orchid [1905] – ★★★1/2
“Pride, beauty, and profit blossom together on one delicate green spike, and, it may be, even immortality”. H. G. Wells was definitely one of the pioneers of stories about murderous orchids, since such writers as John Blunt in The Orchid Horror [1911] and Gordon Philip England in White Orchids [1927] also emulated this theme. Wells’s classic short story centres on Winter-Wedderburn, a shy and lonely man who happens to grow and collect orchids. He always bemoans that nothing ever happens to him, but he is in for a surprise when he picks up a strange orchid root from a man from the Indies. This story starts gently and unassumingly, but soon morphs into something unexpected as it becomes apparent that the strange flower has designs of its own.
“Pride, beauty, and profit blossom together on one delicate green spike, and, it may be, even immortality”. H. G. Wells was definitely one of the pioneers of stories about murderous orchids, since such writers as John Blunt in The Orchid Horror [1911] and Gordon Philip England in White Orchids [1927] also emulated this theme. Wells’s classic short story centres on Winter-Wedderburn, a shy and lonely man who happens to grow and collect orchids. He always bemoans that nothing ever happens to him, but he is in for a surprise when he picks up a strange orchid root from a man from the Indies. This story starts gently and unassumingly, but soon morphs into something unexpected as it becomes apparent that the strange flower has designs of its own.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews