(In 1898, in an article in the Academy on ‘What the People Read’, ‘a Wife’ is interviewed and asked whether she likes ‘novels about the future’ of the kind Wells was publishing from The Time Machine (1895) on — ‘She pondered a moment, wrinkling her brows. “Well, I can’t say that I exactly like them”, she said; “but one has to read them, because everyone talks about them”.’)
