The History of Mr Polly - Hardcover

Wells, H. G.

3.64

1,911 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297860410 ISBN 13: 9780297860419

Publisher: Orion Publishing, 2011

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A wonderful comic novel from an author best-known for his science fiction Mr. Polly is an ordinary middle-aged man who is tired of his wife's nagging and his dreary job as the owner of a regional gentleman's outfitters. Faced with the threat of bankruptcy, he concludes that the only way to escape his frustrating existence is by burning his shop to the ground and killing himself. Unexpected events, however, conspire to lead the bewildered Mr Polly to a bright new future—after he saves a life, fakes his death, and escapes to a world of heroism and hope.

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About the Author:

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) is regarded as one of the all-time greatest authors of science fiction. Giles Foden is the author of The Last King of Scotland which won the Whitbread First Novel Award and a Somerset Maugham Award and was the basis of a feature film starring Forest Whitaker.

Review:

Widely considered to be Wells's most perfectly-formed novel, this comic idyll is the story of a henpecked, unsuccessful, desperately frustrated small shopkeeper who bungles but survives a suicide-and-arson attempt, and becomes master of his fate under another identity―David Lodge, 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

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

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

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