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About The History Of Mr. Polly by H. G. Wells
The History of Mr. Polly is a 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells.The protagonist of The History of Mr. Polly is an antihero inspired by H. G. Wells' early experiences in the drapery trade: Alfred Polly, born circa 1870, a timid and directionless young man living in Edwardian England, who despite his own bumbling achieves contented serenity with little help from those around him. Mr. Polly's most striking characteristic is his "innate sense of epithet", which leads him to coin hilarious expressions like "the Shoveacious Cult" for "sunny young men of an abounding and elbowing energy" and "dejected angelosity" for the ornaments of Canterbury Cathedral."synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Mr. Alfred Polly is a dyspeptic, miserably married shopkeeper in what he terms that "Beastly Silly Wheeze of a hole!"--Fishbourne, England. He is inclined to spark arguments and slapstick calamity wherever he goes. Education was lost on him: when he left school at 14, "his mind was in much the same state that you would be in, dear reader, if you were operated upon for appendicitis by a well-meaning, boldly enterprising, but rather overworked and underpaid butcher boy, who was superseded towards the climax of the operation by a left-handed clerk of high principles but intemperate habits... the operators had left, so to speak, all their sponges and ligatures in the mangled confusion." Still, Polly's mind burns with eccentric genius, and his thwarted romantic heart beats him senseless. His despair results in the most amusing suicide attempt this side of Lisa Alther's novel Kinflicks. We won't spoil the surprise by saying precisely how his scheme misfires--and beware: the introduction gives it away. Note that you can't expect Polly to do anything right, and of course he'll become an inadvertent hero to the whole town. Then he promptly vanishes for further misadventure.
Many critics compare Mr. Polly's broad social satire to Dickens, but it smacks of Mark Twain and the dialect humor of Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley too. "I think it is one of my good books," Wells opined. What makes it so is Polly's heroic incompetence, his subversion of Edwardian propriety, and his bewildered unawareness that he is a revolutionary. --Tim Appelo
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.55. Seller Inventory # G0395051495I3N00
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.55. Seller Inventory # G0395051495I5N00
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.55. Seller Inventory # G0395051495I3N10
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. One of Wells's early novels, first published in 1910, here edited by and with an Introduction - "The Early Novels of H. G. Wells" - by Gordon N. Ray. It includes two Appendixes: "Two Versions of the Final Page" and "A Cancelled Passage". 236 pages. CONDITION: a bright, tight, square, unmarked copy with light edge- and corner-wear, creasing at the lower left corner of the back cover, its interior pristine. This attractive copy is now in a clear, protective polypropylene bag. Seller Inventory # IL773
Book Description trade paperback. Condition: Very Good. Reprint. light wear, slight age toning to margins. Seller Inventory # 033323
Book Description Paperback. Condition: good. Prompt shipment, with tracking. we ship in CLEAN SECURE BOXES NEW BOXES Historical; good trade paperback, tips bumped, spine slightly creased, clean tanned pages, some wear to cover, prompt shipping in new boxes. Seller Inventory # BrownRoughRoom8RZ138