Poll

'The History of Mr. Polly' is a 1910 comic novel by H.G. Wells...




'The History of Mr. Polly' by H.G. Wells

H.G. Wells is often cataloged as a pioneer of science fiction (which he was) . . . but he was also a great Edwardian writer of immense fame and influence who deserves to be remembered as a major literary figure (Guardian)

A delightful comedy of everyday Edwardian England that draws inspiration from its author's own life . . . The story - still strikingly modern - is a comedy about a midlife crisis . . . a comedy of ordinary, provincial life, rooted in the everyday, with countless brilliantly observed details . . . The History of Mr Polly has a special charm as a novel in which, for once, Wells became carefree and relaxed, and described the thing he could never find for himself - peace of mind (Robert McCrum Guardian)

'The History of Mr Polly (1910) is a disturbing comic masterpiece . . . a more gently satirical and masculine counterpart to Flaubert's Madame Bovary . . . a classic of radical existentialism, and, after 100 years, still amusing, unsettling and powerfully contemporary ' (Washington Post)

It's also number 39 in the Guardian's 100 best novels

Here's what they say...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

If, as seems likely, 'The Go-Between' wins then I will take the opportunity to watch the film adaptation which I bought in a fit of enthusiasm having read and loved the book. I've not watched the film but look forward to comparing, and indeed contrasting, with the wonderful source material.

'The Go-Between' is a tense, rich, evocative, and multi-layered novel. Quite brilliant. 5/5 (of course).

I'm looking forward to discovering what the BYT Massive makes of it.

As 'The History of Mr. Polly' by H.G. Wells is not going to win I have set up a hot reads thread to discuss this book...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

It's number 39 in the Guardian's 100 best novels

A link to the full article is below. It includes this bit...

For me, there are three elements to The History of Mr Polly that unite to give the book an enduring appeal, and to place it at the top of Wells's extraordinary output. First, Wells's picture of Mr Polly – an ironic self-portrait – is deliciously appealing. In the literary tradition of Mrs Malaprop, and many minor Dickens characters, Mr Polly has an "innate sense of epithet" that inspires a teeming vocabulary: "intrudacious", "jawbacious" and "retrospectatiousness".

Second, Mr Polly (who could have stepped from the pages of Dickens) is a "little man" of a kind typical of late Victorian and Edwardian England, a man painfully, even doggedly, liberating himself from an oppressive class-ridden society. The debt to Dickens is unequivocal. Alfred Polly is descended from Joe Gargery, Bob Cratchit and Mr Wemmick. He's also related, as it were, to Mr Pooter, is contemporary with EM Forster's Leonard Bast, and will subsequently inspire many Kingsley Amis protagonists, as well as Billy Liar.

Finally, The History of Mr Polly is a comedy of ordinary, provincial life, rooted in the everyday, with countless brilliantly observed details. In part of the long flashback that composes the middle part of Mr Polly's "history", there's a hilarious wedding which commits him to Miriam, an event that inspires one of Wells's best lines: "He had a curious feeling that it would be very satisfying to marry and have a wife – only somehow he wished it wasn't Miriam."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

This is the lovely cover of the 1963 Pan edition that I am reading....