Shadow Lovers: The Last Affairs of H.G. Wells

by Andrea Lynn, Cheryl Chapman

Nearing age 70, and in what would be the last decade of his life, H. G. Wells fell in love at least three times—once with the much younger Baroness Moura Budberg, and soon thereafter with two well-born Americans, Constance Coolidge and Martha Gellhorn, twenty–five and forty years his junior, respectively. These would constitute what Wells himself described as his “last flounderings towards the wife idea” and demonstrate in many ways that Wells was driven less by his considerable intelligence than by his obsession to find his ideal lover – what he called his “lover-shadow.” In Shadow Lovers , Andrea Lynn has created a fascinating study of the very personal side of one of this century's greatest thinkers. This self-proclaimed Don Juan was said to have “radiated” energy: intellectual, emotional, physical, and sexual. Drawing on papers recently made public by the Wells estate, Lynn documents Wells' relationship with each of these femmes fatales . She also paints a vivid portrait of the early part of this century in the United States, Paris, and London. Shadow Lovers is the winner of the 2001 Society of Midland Authors Book Award for Biography.

576 pages, Hardcover

First published December 17, 2001

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what I was expecting but I thoroughly enjoyed this. Wells, who was to put it mildly, a womanizer and there were three relationships at the end of his life that have been relatively unexamined (compared to Rebecca West and Amber Reeves) Moura Budberg, Constance Coolidge, and Martha Gellhorn. These women are fascinating in their own right - and the research seems spot on. Lynn has a good, breezy style - you can tell she likes her subjects warts and all, which makes for very fun reading. And if Budberg wasn't a spy, I'd don't know what. That woman needs a movie bio STAT.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shadow Lovers: The Last Affairs of H.G. Wells (Hardcover)
by Andrea Lynn

ordered from the library nov 8

[ForestGardenGal · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just couldn't make myself get interested. Interpersonal drama nonsense, and really little to do with H.G. Wells as a brilliant author- could have been written about almost any man. Then again, I admittedly didn't finish. Not every book is for every person. This one wasn't for me.