Mr. Britling Sees It Through

by H.G. Wells

"Mr. Britling Sees It Through is H.G. Wells's "masterpiece of the wartime experience in England."[1] The novel was published in September 1916.

Mr. Britling Sees It Through tells the story of a renowned writer, Mr. Britling, a protagonist who is quite evidently an alter ego of the author. The garrulous, easy-going Mr. Britling lives with family and friends in the fictional village of Matching's Easy, located in the county of Essex, northeast of London..."

~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Brit...

Genres: Fiction, Classics, War, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Literature, Novels

366 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1916

About the author

Herbert 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

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Mr Britling Sees It Through’ by H G Wells, is the story of Mr Britling our main protagonist and his experience of both the onset and the first two years of ‘The Great War’ (the novel being published contemporary to that war in 1916). Mr Britling is both a relatively renowned thinker and writer as well as “Prosperous comfortable man who had never come to the cutting edge of life”.

The novel expresses Britlings' conflicting, confused and conflicted thoughts, feelings and emotions concerning the war. It is in part almost a love letter, a paean to England, the English, the English countryside and a privileged and insular way of life inevitably on the verge of coming to its end.

It seems that the character of Britling in this novel is almost certainly Wells own alter ego here representing very much his response to and thoughts on, the ‘Great War’ and the ramifications thereof. Britling seems perpetually to be searching for meaning, motive and cause behind the Great War in particular and ultimately behind all wars. As well as searching for a place to apportion blame, Britling/Wells is striving for not just an end to the Great War, but to all wars – and a utopian, brighter war free world, seemingly based on a world system of democracy ensuring the removal of all causes of war. There is also the search here for establishing a meaning to loss – whether lives can and were lost entirely and utterly in vain or alternatively to serve a greater and higher purpose, enabling a brighter war free future? The novel is very much shaped and defined by being written when it was (1916) and surely the majority of the debates expressed within, would also be those on the conscience of many, many people at that time. Perhaps Wells was to an extent expressing not just his own conflicted thoughts, but those of many others at the time?

Whilst ‘Mr Britling Sees It Through’ is undoubtedly a strong novel, it limits itself to the somewhat insular and protected world of the privileged classes living in the English countryside and therefore to an extent, limits its own possible wider scope in the same manner. The novel contains many strong parts and passages – one in particular provides us with a good example of Wells meditations on war, as follows:

“…how kind and pleasant a race mankind can be. Until the wild asses of nationalism come kicking and slaying amidst them, until suspicion and jostling greed and malignity poison their minds, until the fools with high explosives blow that elemental goodness into shrieks of hate and splashes of blood.”

Whilst the novel is strong, in parts powerful, provides a great sense of characterisation, a well written and strong narrative and dramatic drive – there are the occasional weaker elements; not the least of which is the ending to the novel. To me the ending, the climax to the novel somehow lacks that feel of authenticity and seems both unsatisfying and inconclusive. This unfortunately lets down the strength displayed throughout most of the rest of the novel. Without wishing to give anything from the plot away, the ending of this novel does feel somewhat like an easy (verging on lazy) way out of the preceding plot and the position Britling finds himself in. It does feel unsatisfactory and an inauthentic conclusion to an otherwise very strong novel – which must, to be fair, be viewed in the context and light of the time that the novel was written.

To conclude – ‘Mr Britling Sees It Through’ is not just another novel from the time of the Great War, it is I think more and stronger than that – it is a novel ultimately about hope, misplaced or misdirected hope and it’s about the death and possibility of the resurrection of hope.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2014 I set myself a reading challenge that, on the centenary of events in the First World War, I would read the relevant book out of a pile I have had accumulating unread over the past twenty years. This challenge has expanded a bit and, to add to the military, economic, and political history, I've been reading novels, poems, and plays written by those who lived through the war. Lately I've been assisted in this by the publication by Casemate of its Classic War Fiction series of which this book is part.

Published in September 1916, mid way through the battle of the Somme, this must be one of the first novels about World War One. This has its drawbacks. The book feels rather like an early draft. Much that would have been excluded with more reflection is left in making for an occasionally bloated, lumpy read. If Mr. Britling is an alter ego for Wells, then the lengthy extracts from letters written by his son in the trenches are, quite possibly, simply copied in from letters Wells was receiving at the time. It also leaves much unresolved. What did Mr Direck do when the United States entered the war in April 1917?

But, at the same time, it does convey a evocative picture of England during the war. Some passages are almost unbearably powerful; the death of Mr Britling's aunt in a zeppelin raid, the death of his son, Hugh, and his reflections on the fate of Heinrich, his pre-war German lodger. While many of the books about combat in the war convey an immediate experience, Mr Britling Sees it Through conveys a deep sense of the emotional pain caused by the war.

This is an obscure and atypical book about the First World War now thankfully back in print. It is well worth reading to connect with the pain of those who experienced it.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - Metaphorosis Reviews

An American comes to visit a prominent British author just as World War I breaks out. An examination of war, politics, and philosophy.

This story is essentially the history of the opening and of the realisation of the Great War as it happened to one small group of people in Essex, and more particularly as it happened to one human brain. It came at first to all these people in a spectacular manner, as a thing happening dramatically and internationally, as a show, as something in the newspapers, something in the character of an historical epoch rather than a personal experience; only by slow degrees did it and its consequences invade the common texture of English life. If this story could be represented by sketches or pictures the central figure would be Mr. Britling, now sitting at his desk by day or by night and writing first at his tract "And Now War Ends" and then at other things, now walking about his garden or in Claverings park or going to and fro in London, in his club reading the ticker or in his hall reading the newspaper, with ideas and impressions continually clustering, expanding, developing more and more abundantly in his mind, arranging themselves, reacting upon one another, building themselves into generalisations and conclusions....

That's Mr. Britling Sees It Through in H.G. Wells' own nutshell. It's a muddled, slow moving, and eventually deep and moving examination of war. While the American, Mr. Direck, starts the book off, he vanishes for large portions of the book, and is transparently a prop to provide both a small sub-story and a source of alternate views. Wells' larger interest is in how to understand war, in the context of World War I. His meandering route leads through suburbs, the classic Briton ("The British mind has never really tolerated electricity; at least, not that sort of electricity that runs through wires. Too slippery and glib for it."), the British political class ("But all governments and rulers and ruling classes when you look at them closely are incredible...."), pragmatic insularity ("The world is round—like an orange. The thing is told us—like any old scandal—at school. For all practical purposes we forget it. Practically we all live in a world as flat as a pancake. Where time never ends and nothing changes. Who really believes in any world outside the circle of the horizon?"), pathos ("Why are children ever crushed?"), self-control ("It's the tenth day, it's the odd seductive moment, it's the instant of confident pride—and there is your sanguine temperament in the ditch."), and, most of all, religion (' "Life," said Cecily, "has either got to be religious or else it goes to pieces.... Perhaps anyhow it goes to pieces...." ').

It's this last point that's really at the heart of the book. What's presented as a novel is manifestly a genuine effort to work through arguments for and against war, and to give some meaning to the pain it causes. In Wells' case, the answer is religion.

"Religion is the first thing and the last thing, and until a man has found God and been found by God, he begins at no beginning, he works to no end. He may have his friendships, his partial loyalties, his scraps of honour. But all these things fall into place and life falls into place only with God. Only with God. God, who fights through men against Blind Force and Night and Non-Existence; who is the end, who is the meaning. He is the only King.... Of course I must write about Him. I must tell all my world of Him. And before the coming of the true King, the inevitable King, the King who is present whenever just men foregather, this blood-stained rubbish of the ancient world, these puny kings and tawdry emperors, these wily politicians and artful lawyers, these men who claim and grab and trick and compel, these war makers and oppressors, will presently shrivel and pass—like paper thrust into a flame....".

It's a recurring theme, but handled with a relatively light touch. There's a portion at the end where a "happy Atheist" sees the light of an imperfect god with remarkable swiftness. ("She had been a happy Atheist. She had played in the sunshine, a natural creature with the completest confidence in the essential goodness of the world in which she found herself.") Otherwise, though, the book isn't particularly preachy - it's Wells finding or inventing comfort where he can.

Wells clearly had an eye to the future - "That will help posterity to the proper values of things in 1914." - and it is in fact interesting to read the book 100 years after it was published. Some things haven't changed much. ("She said that she was a Socialist, and there was still in Mr. Direck's composition a streak of the old-fashioned American prejudice against the word. He associated Socialists with Anarchists and deported aliens.")

The book takes a complex position on war - at one point patriotic and supportive, at another repulsed and wounded. While placing the blame for World War I squarely on the German Kaiser, Wells freely admits that British causes have been little better. ("It was small consolation for Mr. Britling to reflect that English homes and women and children were, after all, undergoing only the same kind of experience that our ships have inflicted scores of times in the past upon innocent people in the villages of Africa and Polynesia...") In many ways, the book describes both the foundering of idealism. (' "When it began I did not believe that this war could be like other wars," he said. "I did not dream it. I thought that we had grown wiser at last. It seemed to me like the dawn of a great clearing up. I thought the common sense of mankind would break out like a flame, an indignant flame, and consume all this obsolete foolery of empires and banners and militarism directly it made its attack upon human happiness. A score of things that I see now were preposterous, I thought must happen—naturally.') In the final reckoning, he turns against war as an instrument. ("It is plain to me, surely it is plain to you and all the world, that war is now a mere putting of the torch to explosives that flare out to universal ruin. There is nothing for one sane man to write to another about in these days but the salvation of mankind from war.") But Wells doesn't give up on idealism - he's hopeful. ("His purpose in the book he was beginning to write was to reason out the possible methods of government that would give a stabler, saner control to the world. He believed still in democracy, but he was realising more and more that democracy had yet to discover its method. It had to take hold of the consciences of men, it had to equip itself with still unformed organisations. Endless years of patient thinking, of experimenting, of discussion lay before mankind ere this great idea could become reality, and right, the proven right thing, could rule the earth.")

It's not an entirely dark book. In fact, much of it is modestly light-hearted. ("...in his zeal to tell it he did not at once discover that though Mr. Britling knew French quite well he did not know it very rapidly.") But while it's clothed as a novel, the book is primarily a treatise - one of the many pamphlets that Mr. Britling sits down to write but never finishes. It's slow, sometimes dull and heavy-handed, but it's enlivened with humor (Mr. Britling's belief that he can somehow be helpful to the war effort, so long as the role includes a brassard.). Stick with it long enough, and Britling's musings on the war take on a depth that build on the slower material early on.

Overall, not a great novel, but a very interesting and revealing look at how one thoughtful Briton saw the arrival and development of World War I, and war in general.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

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heavenali Book reviews by someone who loves books …

Mr Britling sees it through – H G Wells (1916)

This was my first read for the Librarything Great War theme read. Many people will be reading William an Englishman by Cecily Hamilton during January and February, but as I read it just over a year ago I opted for one of the alternative titles.

This is an unusual novel, a novel of England as seen through the eyes of an American visitor, a novel about the realities and horrors of war it is both those things and it is also at times a philosophy of humanity, loss and God. Like the start of a long and bloody war, this novel starts slowly – everything appears nice and comfortable, there is no hint of what is to come. The England we find ourselves in initially is a tranquil place, a place where field hockey is played enthusiastically on Sunday afternoons.

In the spring of 1914 Mr Britling arrives at the station of Matching’s Easy in Essex to collect his American guest Mr Direck. Mr Direck finds an English home just as he had envisaged it to be. Mr Direck is introduced to Mr Britling’s wife Edith – his second wife, their two young sons, and Mr Britling’s elder son by his first much loved, much mourned wife Mary. Also a part of the Britling household is Herr Heinrich a young German tutor to the young Britling boys – a gentle young man he adopts a squirrel bringing into his room and attempting to tame it. Living close by in a small cottage is Mr Britling’s secretary Teddy, his young wife Letty their baby and Letty’s sister, Cissy. Mr Direck falls in love with Cissy, involving himself in the lives of these people; he even learns to play hockey, alongside Mr Britling watches the tension in Europe as the world moves closer to war. Mr Britling is a great thinker, an essayist but most of all an optimist, he doesn’t believe in the possibility of war – that humanity could be so insane as to go down that route. He is a man about to be disappointed. When war does come Mr Britling must re-examine many of the things he had been so sure of.

“This story is essentially the history of the opening and of the realisation of the Great War as it happened to one small group of people in Essex, and more particularly as it happened to one human brain”

The war brings great change – Belgian refugees come with dreadful stories and everywhere it seems there are young men dressed in khaki. With a heavy heart Herr Heinrich heads back to Germany, leaving his fiddle in the care of Mr Britling, and his possessions strewn across his room. Teddy soon heads off to war, his wife taking over his secretarial duties. Hugh, Mr Britling’s adored eldest son is only seventeen and joins the Territorials, Mr Britling consoles himself with the idea that he is too young to go out to the front – that it’ll be two years before he is old enough and surely it will be all over by then.

“In this fashion it was that the great war began in Europe and came to one man in Matching’s Easy, as it came to countless intelligent men in countless pleasant homes that had scarcely heeded its coming through all the years of relentless preparations. The familiar scenery of life was drawn aside, and war stood unveiled.

So for the rest of the novel – Mr Britling really does have to see it through, as do so many of the other characters. The war brings tragedy, as might be expected, and Mr Britling has to try and make some sense of the world as it has become. His wonderings are both religious and political as he struggles to come up with a solution for a world that has learned to wage war. Mr Britling is a complex character, on the one hand traditionally married, at the start of the novel he is in midst of conducting his eighth affair – a relationship which does not survive the coming of the war. His huge love of his son Hugh mirrors the great passion for his wife Mary – a woman who he never discusses. He has failed to find the same connection with Edith – and sees them as being an incompatible couple, although he will not bear hearing his mistress criticise Edith and defends her strongly.

This isn’t a particularly easy read – slow to start there are sections where Wells has become unnecessarily wordy – however there is an unexpected depth and poignancy to the novel which makes it well worth reading. First published in 1916 – this novel is possibly all the more fascinating for the fact that it was written during those first two years of the war. Mr Britlings idealising and philosophising must surely mirror Wells’ own. Mr Britling feels like a fairly autobiographical character – in fact HGW himself would only have been a few years older than Mr Britling in 1916.

[Jukka Särkijärvi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a book the other day. You’d be forgiven for having never heard of it, though back in its day it was immensely popular. It was written by H.G. Wells and it’s called Mr. Britling Sees It Through. It was published in September 1916, and it’s set at a large country house in Essex in late 1914 to late 1915. It’s a depiction of life at the home front during the Great War and about as contemporary as you can get.

The focal characters are Mr. Direck, an American visitor, and the eponymous Mr. Britling, a famous author who appears to be a stand-in for Wells himself. Note that the United States had not yet joined the war at the time of writing. I also hesitate to call them protagonists, as neither has a great deal of agency or takes consequential action. Then, nobody does. Against the Great War, there’s not much you can do. Instead the novel is a study of the home front experience from a perspective of people privileged enough to have time to sit around, think, and write about it.

And this has it all. The characters of Mr. Britling Sees It Through go through all the major political talking points of the day, the justifications of the war, arguments for and against, the Irish Question, fervent patriotism, and disillusionment and futile anger in the face of bereavement. There’s Herr Heinrich, a German student schooling the Britling children, who must return home at the outbreak of the war. There’s Belgian refugees. There’s a zeppelin raid. There’s a multitude of viewpoints on the war, and it has not aged a day.

Wells’s perspective on the war and humanity is so broad, so all-encompassing, and his prose so modern that around a third of the way through the book I embarked on a research spree about the book to make sure this was not a cleverly crafted hoax from 2010. If it is, I can only conclude that the maker deserves to fool me. I did find out that Wells’s American published paid him £20,000 for it, which amounts to slightly under 1,9 million euros in modern currency, and a Finnish translation released in two volumes in 1918 and 1919 as Mr Britling pääsee selvyyteen. That’s also on Project Gutenberg. There is a current print edition from a publisher called Casemate, but without Project Gutenberg and the accessibility of public domain works – without the existence of public domain – I would never have read this.

It’s a peculiar war book. There’s not a single explosion on the page or a shot fired in anger, nor does it wallow in abject misery. Its tone is one of understated melancholy with a stiff upper lip, as one young man after another goes away and never returns. It is written as the war was still not only ongoing but also far from any kind of resolution, yet it is never mired in its present but speaks clearly through to the present day.

[Gabi Coatsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is something of an anomaly. It was written in 1916, and people agree that Mr Britling was based on the author. Yet I have the uncanny feeling that the story is about Rudyard Kipling. Wells and Kipling were around the same age.
The book begins just before WW1 and involves Britling, his son Hugh and Her Heinrich, a sort of tutor to the younger sons. When war breaks out, Hugh decides he must go, and joins up. The first part of the book is more about the character of the various nationalities who will take part in the war. Including an American, Mr Direck, who eventually joins up as a Canadian. (The Americans didn’t come into the war until it had been going for three years.)
It isn’t until Hugh is killed that we really see Britling’s grief, beautifully expressed. IRL it was Kipling’s son who died, not Wells’, and at the same time as the events in the book. That’s what confused me.
The last part concerns a letter to Heinrich’s parents on hearing that the young German has been killed too.
Some parts are slower moving than others, but his comments on the necessity for peace and the futility of war resonated with me, though the book is over 100 years old.

[Pete F · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have recently finished reading Mr Britling, and I actually quite enjoyed it. I find myself preferring his novels to his scientific romances because I think the novels, although set around the same time as his scientific romances (ie: the late 19th and early 20th centuries)are less dated.

Mr Britling is really Wells himself, seeing the Great War through, believing it will be the war to end wars. When the war starts in the novel, Britling supports the British war effort, but towards the end of the novel, he is becoming more critical and disillusioned. He loses one of his sons, and a young German who was staying with him before the outbreak of war, is also killed and Mr Britling gets religion and finds some consolation in that. There must have been thousands of Mr Britling types at the time of the First World War who supported the war in its early stages, and became disillusioned later. If this novel was a propaganda novel for the war effort, it does not fit neatly into a government-approved mould.

Of course, it is easy for us, with the benefit of a hundred years between us and the war to be cynical about the war and its aims, and its protagonists. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But we (or rather our governments) are still making mistakes today: going to war when we have no business doing so, so I don't think we can be too hard on that generation. Most of the soldiers who volunteered in the early days of the war were doing it for what they thought were good reasons: to protect a small country which was being over-run by Germany.

Mr Britling is a worthwhile read to get one into the mentality of someone from that time. After all, although Wells was a man ahead of his time, he was also a man of his time, and we can see into his thoughts and how they change over time through the medium of his character, Britling. The novel was written and published before the war ended, so there is no victory, no Versailles Treaty and no notion of what is to come.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems to me that the author used the writing of this book as a vehicle to air his views on many aspects of WW1. There is a story of sorts to help it along, but it is the deeply felt beliefs and ideas that are the main focus.
This is a side of H.G.Wells that is completely new to me, and also a chance to look at the horrendous events of the Great War from a different point of view. That of those left at home in England, who watched the developing conflict with ever increasing horror.
I found this book a little wordy at times, but it was definatly worth reading. It was, in parts, very moving.

[Aric Cushing]

A British family is caught up in WW1. Wells spent time on this book, and it seems it paid off. Well worth the read. One of this lost classics buried under Wells' fantasy novels. The wartime conditions were experienced first hand by Wells and the weaving of personal experience with fictional narrative elevates the work far beyond newer works on the subject.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a a wonderful jumble - part domestic novel, part philosphy, part rather profound musings on war and peace. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am now a little in love with HGW, like, it seems, many women before me.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book thinking it would be a little light British novel and quickly realized I'd ended up right where I usually do - in the midst of war. I don't know enough to know how much of this parallels Wells' own life, but his chronicles of being a writer trying to deal with the onset and then progression of the war seem to be autobiographical, with the rest being more a fictional foundation from which to depict the shock and effect of WWI on Britain, especially on a certain part of complacent, comfortable British society (of which, again, Wells seems likely to have been a part). That fictional foundation, by the way, is very finely detailed, offering up a bit of English countryside, roses and tea and ambles and all - you can almost smell the grass and feel the fresh breezes.

*spoilers*

This book offers war from the perspective, very specifically, of civilians; very specifically of civilians who are losing loved ones to the war, who are suffering the economic effects of the war, but who are very little directly threatened by it. There are some bits from the point of view of a British soldier, first in training, then behind the lines, and then at the front. These coincide well with all accounts of soldiers in WWI and, especially, of British soldiers' experiences.

The book is most effective, I think, in accomplishing two things: (1) presenting the evolution of Mr. Britling's musings on war and (2) infusing us with the sharp pain of loss, the waste, the terrible sadness, of war as a destroyer of lovely people and of their potential. In that sense, the book does what A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book does, more pithily and, somehow, even more affectingly.

Students of war should read this book. I think I ended up highlighting about half of it. It's interesting for the philosophical considerations, for the descriptions of politics at the time (the fury at the Americans' perception of their own exceptionalism and of the Americans as profiteers is palpable and fascinating), and because it's a very good mind asking the kinds of questions we so often ask about war: is there necessity, is it avoidable, is there room for it to produce good, is it a product of human nature or of political structures, how can we stop it, whose responsibility is it, etc.

Four things to offer a heads-up on. First, Wells builds up this visceral ire, sense of loss, and sense of futility and then, in the very last bit of the book, finds solace in his own view of God. This is both interesting and, for me, absolutely and completely unsatisfying. Second, Wells' sexism is pervasive and annoying: women are, respectively, a clingy mistress, an idealized dead wife, a boring current wife, a simple and emotional daughter, a showboating ideologue with a power platform, or, in one lone case, somewhat their own person, if defined mostly through the eyes of a male admirer. Yuck. Third, Wells goes in the fully opposite direction of TH White in concluding that the end of war will coincide not with the absence of borders and nationalism, but with respect (in a more Wilsonian way) for all nations'/groups' self-rule. This, too, is unsatisfying and an inadequate observation for someone who has, for example, offhandedly remarked throughout the book on the British empire. Fourth, and finally (and also, unfortunately, consistent with Wilson), there is one kind of glaring, bring-you-up-short, absolutely astonishing anti-Semitic phrase (the "Jew God") that may be equally dismissive of Judaism and Christianity (Wells is offering his non-sectarian religious views here), but the words themselves brought me to an abrupt, eye-widening halt, because they sounded so derisive and dismissive. That one throwaway line in a part of the book he clearly meant to be uplifting and persuasive, led me to look up whether he had an issue with Jews and...yup. So that's just fascinating. Here's this deeply humane, deeply thoughtful, wholly relatable book, but he's a sexist who sloughs off empire as an "oh-well "and his disdain for Jews is so deep that it jumps out of the very part of the book in which he is trying to move us to awe and faith.

All in all, I recommend this book. It's flawed, of its time, and a reflection of Wells himself, but it's also a bit of history and a careful consideration of this war.

[Dave Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the bestselling book in Britain in 1916, and you can see why. One of our leading authors tries to make sense of the Great War while it was still in progress, and in doing so has profound things to say about all human experience.

There are some of the clumsy sentences Margaret Drabble complained about in Wells, but he was writing with passion and urgency -- also, he's aware of it; his alter-ego Mr Britling pauses at one point to lament his "tinpot prose".

The current print editions are all horribly formatted amateur rip-offs, so just get
the ebook free from Project Gutenberg.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A Farewell to Arms", Count Greffi to Henry:

"What have you been reading?"
"Nothing," I said. "I'm afraid that I am very dull."
"No. But you should read."
"What is there written in war-time?"
"There is `Le Feu` by a Frenchman, Barbusse. There is `Mr. Britling Sees Thorugh It. (sic)'"
"No, he doesn't."
"What?"
"He doesn't see through it. Those books were at the hospital."
"Then you have been reading?"
"Yes, but nothing any good."
"I thought `Mr. Britling` a very good study of the English middle-class soul."
"I don't know about the soul."
"Poor boy. We none of us know about the soul."

Isn't it strange that Count Greffi should get the title wrong?!
======

Great War Young Americans: Wells's Mr Direck vs. Hemingway's Lieutenant Henry! Foppish Direck is miserable at love and the dull British woman keeps saying "no". His new European friends hate him for America's neutrality. Macho Henry is an accomplished lover and the dull British woman can't get enough. His new European friends love him so much they don't notice that he's American. One is out of the war and blunders in to try and win the woman and a bit of respect; the other escapes the war, and the woman's waiting for him.

"Mr Britling" is over 430 pages, and it doesn't feel that much happens. "No-one gets murdered, or married, or in a tricky situation over a pound note!" as Samuel Johnson would have put it. But, from a charming house in Essex, we watch England slide into the Great War. "This story is essentially the history of the opening and of the realisation of the Great War as it happened to one small group of people in Essex, and more particularly as it happened to one human brain" opens the 12th part of the first chapter of Book 2. But you'd probably have worked that out by then. It's an interesting read that gives an idea of what it was to be English middle-class. But I can see why Lieutenant Henry wouldn't have enjoyed it.

On Mr Britling's garden:
"it was various and delightful without being in the least opulent; that was one of the little secrets America had to learn. It didn't look as though it had been made or bought or cost anything, it looked as though it had happened rather luckily."

"He was inordinately proud of England, and he abused her incessantly."

"Too long had British life been corrupted by the fictions of loyalty to an uninspiring and alien court,"
Famous quote from this book.

"The story was like a page from some fantastic romance of Jules Verne's;”
Nice shout-out.

"moral indignation is the mother of most of the cruelty in the world."

"Getting out of a trench to attack gives you an odd feeling of just being hatched."

"But there in America was the old race, without Crown or Church or international embarrassment [empire:], and it was still falling short of splendour."

[Lesley Tilling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't read the last Book Group choice. It was Dr Thorne by Trollope and I struggled through about three chapters and gave it up. So I missed the meeting.
Instead I took up a book which has been on my shelf for ages. In fact, I think it was on the grandparents' bookshelves in Walton-on-Thames. They had gone, but when we moved in their books were still on the bookshelves and their old coats and hats were in the cupboards, old tennis rackets and hockey sticks in the hall. They were proper people with a history. But maybe I haven't written about this here.)

The book is Mr Britling Sees it Through and it is a novel, but one with no real plot; it is more like a thinly fictionalised record of how it felt to live through the first two years of the First World War. The main character, Mr Britling, is a writer like H. G. Wells, and he has a certain fame and a certain degree of comfort, and he fools around with women who are not his wife and tells himself some good reasons for this philandering - only, of course, he never calls it philandering; but he admits these serial relationships are a kind of game. A game of ego on two sides.

As well as a wife and another woman a motor-ride away, he has a young secretary, who has a young wife and sister-in-law; Mr B also has a teenage son and two younger sons, and a live-in German tutor for his son. And at the outset, he has a visiting American who is keen to gain understanding of the British way of life. All these people are caught unawares by the war and the drama comes in the way the war treats them all. The book was published in the deepest days of the war before the United States came into it. I shall type up some extracts but I believe it is all worth reading. There is a freshness and vividness about Wells, an honesty that's fresh air in a fuggy room; a shot of hard stuff.

I love the picture of the Georgians before the war - the world of rose gardens and no central heating, when women were struggling for the vote and exhilarating in a degree of independence. It's the moment that Mrs Dalloway's daughter (Mrs Dalloway: Virginia Woolf) catches a bus on her own and goes riding up the Strand just because she can; and suddenly freedom is just possible for her... she starts to envision possible careers, possible professions...

Anyway, to set the scene there's a terrific description of a hockey match involving both sexes, very like one of those old school stories, and you imagine what fun they had in the days before we all got scared of being outside.

After the war breaks out, the people of the village start a run on the village shop (Hickson's), amongst them the well-to-do neighbour Mrs Faber.

" And would you believe me," she went on, going back to Mrs Britling, "that man Hickson stood behind his counter - where I've dealt with him for years, and refused absolutely to let me have more than a dozen tins of sardines. Refused! Point-blank!

"I was there before nine, and even then Hickson's shop was crowded - crowded, my dear!"

Mr Britling is disgusted with women who just want to be dramatic, like this. But then he starts to worry that there will be "a tremendous change in values"; he worries that all his investments will be worthless and there will be bankruptcy. He tells his wife that they may have to leave home and go somewhere safer. But he, too, is as excited as the neighbour.

"Now I am afraid - and at the same time I feel that the spell is broken. The magic prison is suddenly all doors. You may call this ruin, bankruptcy, invasion, flight; they are doors out of habit and routine ... I have been doing nothing for so long, except idle things and discursive things."

"... Writing is recording, not living. But now I feel suddenly that we are living intensely. ...There are times when the spirit of life changes altogether..."

"They speculated about the possible intervention of United States. Mr Britling thought that the attack on Belgium demanded the intervention of every civilised power, that all the best instincts of America would be for intervention. ...

"It would be strange if the last power left out to mediate were to be China," said Mr. Carmine. "The one people in the world who really believe in peace .... I wish I had your confidence, Britling."

For a time they contemplated a sort of Grand Inquest on Germany and militarism, presided over by the Wisdom of the East. Militarism was, as it were, to be buried as a suicide at four crossroads, with a stake through its body to prevent any untimely resuscitation."

Then there are reports of the atrocities in Belgium. Mr Britling's American visitor, Mr Direck, has been on the continent to see for himself, and has returned, shocked.

"They have started in to be deliberately frightful. You do not begin to understand ... Well....Outrages. The sort of outrages Americans have never heard of. That one doesn't speak of.... Well... Rape. ....They have been raping women for disciplinary purposes on tables in the market-place of Liege. Yes, sir. It's a fact. I was told it by a man who had just come out of Belgium.

Meanwhile, the British are unprepared and unarmed. Germany expects to win the war in weeks. Direck says:

"Germany today is one big armed camp. It's all crawling with soldiers. And every soldier has his uniform and his boots and his arms and his kit."

"And they're as sure of winning as if they had got London now. They mean to get London. ... They say it's England they are after, in this invasion of Belgium. They'll just down France by the way. ... They know for certain you can't arm your troops. They know you can't turn out ten thousand rifles a week."

So Mr Britling's thoughts take a different turn. He stops being excited at the new world order he dreams of. The English start retreating in disorder. There are rumours of corruption in high places. And Mr Britling decides his country needs him and takes the train to London where he has contacts; he tries hard to find a role in the war machine. He wants to be of service to his threatened country, and finds that he is not alone; other men men of thirty-eight and fifty-four proclaim themselves fit enough to serve and lobby to learn to shoot and use a bayonet. But they are not wanted: the war machine can't cope with them. They have nothing to do. They feel "left out."

"The great "Business as Usual" phase was already passing away, and London was in the full tide of recruiting enthusiasm. That tide was breaking against the most miserable arrangements for enlistment it is possible to imagine. Overtaxed and not very competent officers, whose one idea of being efficient was to refuse civilian help and be very, very slow and circumspect and very dignified and overbearing, sat in dirty little rooms and snarled at this unheard-of England that pressed at door and window for enrolment. Outside every recruiting office crowds of men and youths waited, leaning against walls, sitting upon the pavements, waiting for long hours, waiting to the end of the day and returning next morning, without shelter, without food, many sick with hunger; men who had hurried up from the country, men who had thrown up jobs of every kind, clerks and shopmen, anxious only to serve England and "teach those damned Germans a lesson."

"Everywhere there were the flags of the Allies; [in London] in shop-windows, over doors, on the bonnets of automobiles, on people's breasts, and there was a great quantity of recruiting posters on the hoarding and in windows.. There were also placards calling for men on nearly all the taxicabs. "

Later on the German population in London come under suspicion and some are badly treated, but not so badly, it seems, as the English population in Germany. Mr Britling is really shocked when he reads a bale of German comic papers in the study of a friend in London. They were filled with caricatures of the Allies and more particularly of the English...

"One incredible craving was manifest in every one of them. The German caricaturist seemed unable to represent his enemies except in extremely tight trousers or in none; he was equally unable to present them without thrusting a sword or bayonet, spluttering blood, into the more indelicate parts of their persons. "... "But it's blind fury - at the dirt-throwing stage."

His friend points out: "They want to foam at the mouth. They do their utmost to foam more." and Wells incudes the lyrics of a "Hymn of Hate" which the Germans sing about England. It is extraordinary - but Britling's friend points out that this is war. "We pretend war does not hurt. They know better..."

The important character at this point is the German tutor who had taught Britling's son Hugh before the war, and had been an earnest and loveable character in the household - whenever Britling is inclined to hate the Germans he remembers Heinrich (who has gone back to his country), who "became a sort of advocate for his people before the tribunal of Mr. Britling's mind." He also remembered happy holidays in the hospitable village of the Odenwald. And then he is told of young German soldiers who have shot women and babies. In short, Mr Britling tries hard to be reasonable and understand the Germans, but at the same time the war becomes more and more savage; there is the torture of "gas", the use of flame jets...

I think I won't write more - all this is prelude to the moment that Britling's son Hugh goes to fight at the age of seventeen, and the forthright letters he sends home about the experience of fighting in the trenches form a large part of the middle of the book.

But this book has been written to record the truth as Wells saw it and felt it and experienced it; he meant it to be representative, and he meant it for posterity. It was published a hundred years ago and it still has interesting things to say. I recommend it. I shall be pressing it on everyone. It's not a great story or a great book - but there is a boldness to it that makes it remarkable. Good old Wells! what a long time he lived and how hard he worked.

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Britling Sees it Through was a bit of a surprise to me, first of all because it is not science fiction, but historical fiction. It has a delightful setting with the mailing address Mr. Britling, Dower House, Matching's Easy, Essex, England. I do not know if Matching's is a verb or a noun, but I'm assuming it is the latter, and I have no idea what an "Easy" is. I'm sure that today it has some form of an alpha/numeric postal code, but in 1914-1916 the simpler form got the mail through. We never do find out what Britling's first name is.

The quaint address is misleading however, for life in Matching's Easy is anything but easy with a monstrous war looming on the horizon. Local thought, leastwise for Mr. Britling, is that that this war has been brewing since 1870-1871. The first half of the book consists of Mr. Britling's ruminations on the impending war, aggravated by the fact that he has a son Hugh, who is the apple of his eye and is 17 years old.

Mr. Britling is being visited by an American, Mr. Direcks, who is trying to persuade Britling to come to America on a lecture on the "American Cousins Abroad." We see during the course of the discussions that both England and America share the same sort of insularity about getting involved in a war in Europe. To England it is a case where foreign entanglements have never worked out well for them, and for Americans it is simply that Europe is so far away and it feels safe that it is protected by a 3000 mile Atlantic Ocean. It forgets that if England falls there will be no one patrolling those waters to keep out foreign invaders.

We find that Mr. Britling is a widower, having lost his first wife Mary about 10 years ago. She was the passion of his life, a passion that he does not share with his second wife Edith, though they have an "agreement" that somehow they will make it work. How Mr. Britling does that would call for a spoiler alert, so I'll simply let it drop. While he is making things work the younger crowd busies itself with field hockey, a sport that has been imported from India. Mr Direcks and Cissie, the sister-in-law of Britling's secretary Teddy, strike up a romance that propels the story on. Britling is being dragged into the 20th century having recently purchased an automobile which he names Gladys. Britling and Gladys do not get along well, as he is a dangerously inexperienced driver, with many comic results. The dialogue between Mr. Direcks and the locals is amusing, as it plays on the idiosyncrasies of both their common languages.

The story starts to drag during the last half, just as the Great War gets under way. There is much hand wring by Britling and other locals, as their most recent exposure to war was the distant Boer War in South Africa. Prior to that it was the Crimean War in the 1850s and some smaller battles in their far flung colonies. This new war is different in that it is just off their shore and they are starting to receive refugees from Belgium, many of whom they do not approve of. We see much of the patriotic drum beating and jingoism that is peculiar to all home fronts. What complicates things is that it is family, friends and neighbors who are going to war, not some unknown entities from distant counties and cities. Wells also writes in a firsthand accounting of Zeppelin bombing attacks, that I was never aware of before. I have since learned that they were quite common through all of 1914-1917, especially in London. It does not call for a disclaimer that this is a very anti-war novel. We see Wells' skill as an essayist and pundit as the Britling character hammers out his thoughts on ideas on the war and its conduct. That Britling is a writer and author, just as Wells is, works out quite well.

We find out that Letty, wife of Teddy, fearing for the loss of her husband has conjured up an idea how all the women of the world could unite and enact a scheme that is sure to stop all future wars, including this one. It is unique in its simplicity. Britling, on the other hand, wrestles with placing blame, and figuring out how God has a role in ending war. He comes to some surprising conclusions.

It is at this point that I wish that Wells had loped off about fifty pages, as it really started to drag at the end. It was an unusual ending to as it ended in 1916, the year of its publication, before Wells knew the outcome of the war. For the reader of the day it must have been very confusing.

[Susan C Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

UPDATE: After writing this review I looked up the book on Wikipedia and found out more that makes me realize it needs to become a bestseller again. When it was published in 1916, it became one of the most popular novels in England. It was also used as as essential reading in a chaplain's education as well as being widely read by military officers and religious leaders of the day. It is amazing to me that a book that is this important and by such a well-known author has disappeared from bookshelves and libraries. With all the current "saber rattling" it needs to be read again and soon. ---- I came across this book while I was working on a reading list of Publishers Weekly Bestsellers. This was the top book for 1916 AND it was written by H. G. Wells! What! That H.G. Wells? The War of the Worlds H.G. Wells? Yes and I had never heard of this book before. I Wiki'd him and it turns out he wrote many books before the ones we know him for and he is an absolutely wonderful writer! What a find! He was English and wrote this during the first two years of World War 1. Having published it in 1916 the war would not conclude for two more years. This work of historical fiction shows us not only how much World War 1 affected one man in the English countryside but also the rest of the world. Haunting, beautiful, devastating and even funny it needs to be read and pondered. I need to check to see if it has ever been made into a movie. It would be a classic.

[Doc Honour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm re-reading HG Wells, working my way through a lot of his writing that I never encountered before. Mr. Britling Sees It Through is one of those I'd never read; didn't even know it existed. My prior knowledge of HG Wells was his prescient science fiction, well on a par with Jules Verne, and yet I find that he wrote far more social fiction, often with pointed socialist messages. But again, Mr. Britling isn't really one of those either.

The book was written in 1916, in the middle of World War I (The Great War), and it deeply reflects the time. It operates on three distinct levels. Even though it is sometimes a bit slow, its depth makes it well worth reading today.

At the surface level, it's the story of an established Essex family and their visitors both before and during the war. Mr. Britling is the head of the family, a philosophical essayist who is considered far-thinking enough that a Massachusetts visitor wants to invite him to the US for a series of talks. The family include his current wife and three sons (one by a lost and very loved wife), his young male secretary who also has wife and son, a young scholarly German tutor for his boys, the American visitor, Mr. Britling's flightly mistress, a few others, and several servants in the household. The household is chaotic and yet a delightful mix of differences, playing wild games of field hockey on Sunday afternoons. Then war comes, through a series of strange events, and touches the lives of all. The greater part of the book is "seeing it through," how the household members learn about the impact of war. All are forced to re-examine their views on life. The indulgence of a mistress becomes paltry in the face of the changes, as does the extravagance of an automobile. Several die. Mr Britling is changed forever.

At a secondary level, it's the story of WWI and how it came about. I found myself frequently stepping aside into the Internet to look up references about the time. How did WWI start? What were the motivations of the various players? Why would Austria wait three weeks and then issue a 48-hour ultimatum to Serbia? Why did Germany think that it was justified to march through Belgium and into France, in response to the assassination of an Austria duke in Serbia? Why did Russia invade Germany to "defend Serbia?" I was astonished to read all this history again, in more depth than ever before, to see how the seeds of WWI were laid in the sudden development of Germany as a distinct country, that happened only fifty years earlier, the nationalism and militarism of that country, how the initial attacks were a repeat of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, how the English felt betrayed by this duplicity and the Germans felt betrayed by England's response to defend Belgium. All in all, how the spark of Sarajevo was simply an excuse seized upon by the Kaiser to do what he was planning to do already. History has great lessons for us, and this book sent me into those lessons with the personal viewpoint of HG Wells as an Englishman wrought into the midst of it. It is apparent that much of Mr. Britling's thoughts and essays are really those of Wells himself, wondering how the world could possibly recover. WWI quickly settled into a war of attrition, of trench warfare, in which the best and brightest of the young men were sent to the Front never to return. In those few years, it became a depressing time of despair for those involved in it, a time of human lives wasted forever, to no purpose other than the pride of the few. And even that purpose was not fulfilled. The situation is not unlike the world today, in which rogue countries can impact the world with their crazy politics and mad desires, while others have little or no control. At one point, Mr. Britling tries to devise a form of world government that would succeed in preventing war forever (which the world actually tried to do following both WWI and WWII), but cannot get past the individual craziness of individuals. It is almost an admission by Wells that the socialism he propounded in earlier novels would not work in the face of his newfound war knowledge. And so Mr. Britling turns to God as the only and best solution.

But at the deepest level, it's the story of lost humanity that is still just as valid in the USA today as it was in Europe a hundred years ago. Once again, just as in Germany in 1914, we have groups rising to create their own high dreams without consideration of the consequences. Just as Germans then, Americans today buy in to the dream without realizing the impossibility of the path. It was not the Kaiser himself who burned the city of Leuven in a fit of anger/fear. It was not the Kaiser who raped and pillaged people in neutral Belgium. These acts were done by the individual German soldiers, the people of Germany, each one believing that the dream was right enough that the damage would be justified. Today our American visionaries chase what they believe are high aims of "the good life for all" - yet in doing so they shove aside the beauty that America has, changing forever the landscape in which we live, taking the youth captive into destruction to create things that never can be. Those who worked hard and deferred enjoyments to live the American dream become targets for takers who want to give a new unattainable dream to those who do not work for it and will therefore never value it. The result is third-generation welfare recipients in New Orleans who sit in their own trash after Katrina and demand "Who's going to pick up this trash?" rather than knowing that they have the power to just pick it up. This is the consequence of our path. Just as the English suffered the loss of their way of life for the German dreams that could not be, America is suffering the loss of its way of life for dreams that cannot be. This book filled me with the same sense of despair that I have in America today, the America that has not yet seen the need, as Mr. Britling did, to turn to God. In this sense, the book is truly redeemed in its quiet existence.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today, H. G. Wells is known as a science fiction writer. A hundred years ago, he was known as a novelist who captured life and also wrote about the future. He was also a respected historian (The Outline of History).

Written in 1918, Mr. Britling Sees it Through is a look at World War I at the time (or the Great War at the time). It begins in 1914 when an American comes to visit Mr. Britling, known intellectual, and witness British life. Although at that moment Archduke Ferdinand is being assassinated, the Brits at the table are more concerned about the possibility of an Irish Civil War. The immediacy of the book was fascinating to me. As the war drags on (and on), and life changes. Zepplins drop bombs on England, more boys are killed overseas, it seems endless.

It is wonderfully written (and why he was a famous novelist), but Wells does expound a bit too much on the uselessness of war--however, given the events, one can understand. He does make a good argument against the Empire, which is refreshing.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A found this to be an absolutely marvellous book by H.G.Wells.
One of the finest I have read about the impact of WW1 on the English way of life as it was then.
Wells does not hold back on his descriptions of the atrocities of the trenches,and the suffering of the young boys who where sent out to fight a pointless war.
Wells pleads on behalf of the characters portrayed to see sense,this aimed squarely at the government and the old established order of politicians and the elite for their lack of forethought and understanding,and total unpreparedness of the War Office.
Also Wells descriptions of a family who suffers a casualty of this war is heartwrenching to say the least.
The book has Wells sense of humour at the start,and his inimitable sense of descriptions for the English countryside.
I can understand why,at the time,this book was a massive seller.
If it can strike a chord with me now, imagine how,at the time it must have with the people who lived through it.
A thoroughly engaging, truthful,heartwrenching novel that deserves to be read again and again.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/mr-britling-sees-it-through-by-h-g-wells/

I had no expectations whatsoever of this novel, originally published in 1916, one of the last of the novels in my big H.G. Wells collection. I found it a really impressive work, one of the best non-sf novels by Wells that I have read. Mr Britling is a self-parody of the author, a complacent intellectual writer with a nice place in the country, extended family around him and a lover in London. In 1914 he thinks that war is impossible, and if it comes it will be brief because sensible people of all countries will reject it. It turns out that he is wrong, and his world diminishes through loss and tragedy. I like Wells all the more for putting such a flawed version of himself front and centre; Britling is a very imperfect human being, but his tragedy is discovering that the imperfections of the world he lives in are much worse than he had imagined. There are some nice and respectful bits with Belgian refugees as well.

[zunggg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Autobiographical novel in which Wells details the shattering impact of WWI on his idealistic worldview. It's too long, especially in the first, pre-war, part, as Wells wastes a lot of words on the POV of a visitor from America who subsequently recedes from the plot. It's disorganised and rambling — much of this book is Wells thinking out loud, deliberating with himself in his elastic, scattershot way as he seeks to understand the war he and virtually all his associates never thought could happen. But its strengths are its immediacy — it was published in 1916 and the uncertainty regarding the progress and outcome of the war is palpable — and, especially, its emotional core as the title character (aka Wells) processes his grief at the death of his young son, Hugh, in action. Hugh's letters home from the trenches, presumably quoted from or based on originals, are as moving as that kind of primary source tends to be. It adds up to an interesting contemporary indictment of the war, of all war, and those who aid and abet it.

[Andy Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book, written in 1916, halfway through WW1. It’s written from the viewpoint of Mr Britling, clearly based on the author. It starts just before the outbreak of war. Mr Britling and his family and friends live a privileged life in rural Essex. He makes his living through writing. He is sure that humanity has reached a stage where war cannot happen, people are too sensible to have to resort to it. When war breaks out his beliefs are shattered. Much of the rest of the book is concerned with him trying to make some sense out of what has happened and trying to construct a worldview that encompasses it. There is much self-examination and also criticism of those in power. Some of the writing is very poignant, eg where he is with his son on the night before the son goes off to war. The letters home from the son paint a graphic picture of aspects of life as a soldier. The son’s death eventually leads Mr Britling to a belief in god, albeit not one that most would recognise.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sprawling account of Wells’s experience of WWI as told through the titular character, his passionate anti-war stance and insights into the inhumanity and horrors of war are the most powerful passages of this novel written in the same freewheeling opinionated mode as most of his post-1910 fictions. The exploratory passages on losing his son (as Wells lost his son) in the battlefield are among the most personal and wrenching words H.G. ever wrote, making this a contender for his most stridently emotional work. There are still problems with the slapdash approach to plotting and structure to overcome—the first 200-odd pages are a light-hearted frolic following the antics of an American coming to visit Britling, at which point the novel switches to long intricate explorations of the thoughts and experiences of the writer, and the American is banished for another 200-odd pages—however, those willing to follow Wells’s lucid and explosive streams of pondering will find Mr. Britling a sublime and underrated effort.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a celebrated insight into the mindset of British opinion during the First World War. In this book, Wells - using a semi-autobiographical device - discusses the attitudes of nations, the importance of religion and the search for a meaning of the horror of war. It was written and published in 1916 while the war was raging and its outcome uncertain. It is most moving in the way in which Wells draws the characters of the inquiring intellectual, the frustration and anger of the bereaved and - quite daringly for the time - how a young German friend can be defended as sympathetic and admirable. A great book and a great piece of social history.

[Malcolm Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Britling sees it through is a novel set in the fictional Essex village of Matching's Easy. The main character is Mr Britling. a writer and a deep thinker who may just have been created by the author, H G Wells as his alter ego.
The story tells of the coming war (WW1) and how it affects the lives of Mr Britling's family and household. He discusses the reasons for the possible onset of a distant conflict as it evolves into a pan European war. His American and German friends staying with him become sounding boards to look at the nature of post colonialist Britain and how it views itself in the world.
Ill prepared or equipped and with a detached view of themselves, Britain reluctantly enters the war against a German invading well disciplined and equipped military machine which has already taken over France & Belgium. As the story evolves the reader is given a personal and graphic account of what life was like in the trenches of northern Europe, the horrors, the noise, the death and the inevitable long periods of wakeful boredom. Death greats Mr Britling's family brining home the sad, senselessness of the war.

Often people think of H G Wells as a writer of science fiction like the time machine and war of the world's but like many of his other stories he brings to life the multifaceted world of England at the beginning of the twentieth century. Having parents and grandparents who lived through these times and places it helped me to understand what my ancestors must have lived through.

For anyone interested in social history of that period I would fully recommend this book as a worthwhile read.

[P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written about the comings of the Great War in the midst of the Great War. I believe this was published before American involvement. Initially I thought the main protagonist was going to be an American, but it turns out the Mr. Britling of the title is indeed the main character. Also a thinly veiled stand in for the author himself it would seem.

Over 10% of British servicemen were KIA and 30% were WIA over the course of the war. The horror of this statistic comes across through the title character's thoughts and epistles.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceptionally interesting, funny, sad and moving work. Initially revolving around an American moving to the UK. The story begins as quite a fun parody of English life as seen by an American.

The story evolves into looking at Political Philosophy of various European Nations pre WWI. Then, ultimately the effect of war on human life, nationally and family and how those who survive have to pick up the pieces and their emotional scars.

When Wells moves away from his grandiose ideas of a Fabian Future, his ‘Political Philosophy’ based books are a really enjoyable read.

[David Bisset · Rating 4 out of 5]

Defections in the Great War

The book has an idyllic beginning, and then war bursts upon the scene. Well considers the war to be madness. With all the participants being victims. He hopes that something positive from the shared horrors. The book was a bestseller when published in 1916. It is a challenge to the general bellicosity which then prevailed. There is much beauty in the book, but also an attack on the idiocy which brought the war about. What a remarkable book in 1916; and it has never lost its relevance.

[Paul Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

If H G Wells (or some other feted novelist) hadn't written this it would never have been published. The central character is barely believable from the outset and frankly, a selfish bore as well as boorish. Wells develops plot lines then drops them, engages in musings that lead nowhere and finally unravels into an argument with himself as the text degenerates into a jumble of notes, contradictions, ultimately (and thankfully) just petering out.

[Martha Farley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastating depiction of the toll of World War I as seen through the eyes of a privileged and niave upper middle class English intellectual and the members of his community. Wells brilliantly showed how intellectually and emotionally unprepared the English were for the devastation of the war. He poignantly captures the anguish of average people grappling with the loss of innocent civilians and niave young men.