The Inexperienced Ghost and Nine Other Stories

by H.G. Wells, Hart Day Leavitt (Editor)

1 Introduction Hart Day Leavitt
11 The Inexperienced Ghost (1902)
25 The Magic Shop (1903)
37 The Country of the Blind (1904)
64 The Apple (1896)
73 The Stolen Body (1898)
90 A Slip Under the Microscope (1896)
110 The Purple Pileus (1896)
123 Pollock and the Porroh Man (1895)
140 The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1898)
159 The Flowering of the Strange Orchid (1894)

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction

167 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 1965

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

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another of my old, yellowed, crumbly SF books from long ago that I’m just now getting around to reading. This is a fairly entertaining (British-wise) collection of ten short stories. The book’s editor, Hart Day Leavitt, was a well-known and multitalented professor of English at Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts, counting among his students actor Jack Lemon and former president George H. W. Bush. (Wikipedia) Mr. Leavitt describes Wells’ stories as populated by ordinary people facing unusual situations, rather than psychotic or psychic people with unusual powers. And, like the characters, the stories themselves go from what appear to be mundane events to increasingly bizarre and at times horrifying scenarios. My reading of these stories certainly agrees with Mr. Leavitt’s analysis, and I’d add that I believe Mr. Wells was an influence on Rod Serling.
The title story, “The Inexperienced Ghost,” involves a fellow named Clayton, a member of the Mermaid Club, which is concerned with discussions of the occult, who informs his fellow members that he has contacted a ghost, one with a real self-image problem. Said poor ghost can hardly raise a “boo” and hopes that haunting the Mermaid Club will help to beef up his spookiness. In typical British fashion, he’s described thus: “Being transparent, he couldn’t avoid telling the truth.” Heck, he can’t even disappear in any credible manner. His pathetic spectral nature has followed a lackluster life, even a lackluster death. The solution to this problem is discovered to be related to old Masonic rites, and I’ll just leave the rest of it for you to find out. This story was one of my favorites of this collection.
In similar fashion, “The Magic Shop” takes a father and son on a trip into town, to a magic shop, and thereto into the Twilight Zone, fun, sweet little story.
“The Country of the Blind” follows the old saying, “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.” An explorer in the deepest jungles of Ecuador, comes across a village of blind people and becomes involved…well, the rest of the story would appear to play out in a predictable manner, but the ending is somewhat different than expected. I had thought I had seen a similar story on TV some years ago, but the only source I came across was a reference to a “Playhouse 90” program from the late 1950’s, but it was not available to view.
“The Apple” refers to the notorious fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and how it affects a number of contemporary people. Intriguing if somewhat familiar plotline.
“The Stolen Body” addresses the question of what might happen if a person could somehow trade bodies with another person by projecting one’s spirit through space by force of will. In this story, it’s in the form of such a parapsychological experiment between two colleagues, with several surprising twists, quite enjoyable.
“A Slip Under the Microscope” is more of a standard story, about a couple of academic rivals in the field of philosophy, so that it is, really, less about any unusual phenomena than an examination of the sometimes-quite-nasty politics within a university. This story points out that petty competition and egotism can be more destructive than anything that goes bump in the night.
“The Purple Pileus” is about a rather ordinary shopkeeper (Mr. Wells seems to populate many of his stories with such unassuming personages) whose wife is a spendthrift and partyer, and whose job is unfulfilling. He has murderous urges upon his wife and is just generally unhappy. Until he comes across an ugly mushroom (I found out that a “pilius” is a cap on a mushroom) while on a hike in the woods contemplating suicide. He eats same, with salubrious results! When he returns home with a supply of these pilei, he tries to force his wife and several of her drunken friends to eat them, with disastrous results. The story ends some years later with the protagonist being quite successful, with the help of his wife. I did cringe at this one, as it seems to casually describe an abusive relationship. This was one of four episodes in a short series called “The Nightmare Worlds of H. G. Wells,” (2016) available on IMBD. While the general presentation was almost a word-for-word adaptation of the story, the ending was vastly different, for no good reason I could determine. Indeed, based on this alteration, I chose not to watch the other three episodes.
“Pollock and the Porroh Man” brings us again into the deepest jungles, this time in Africa, in which the explorer Pollock at first forms a good relationship with the Porroh Man, a sort of local shaman, but then runs afoul of him. In order to escape any curses from the Porroh Man, Pollock has him killed. However, the severed head of said Porroh Man seems to follow the unfortunate Pollock around, with somewhat predictable results. Lot of racism in this one.
“The Man Who Could Work Miracles” also involves psychokinesis, but describes a man, an ordinary clerk, who discovers that he has extremely powerful abilities, some of which are no more than parlor tricks but others which can result in peril for the human race. The clerk is extremely ambivalent about this power and refers to it as a curse. There are some instances of “setting things to right,” and without giving anything away, something of that nature occurs in the somewhat surprise ending. The story was made into a movie in 1936, starring British actor Roland Young (who had appeared in “The Philadelphia Story” and had won an Oscar for his role in “Topper”). Mr. Young lends a very credible performance of bemusement to the protagonist; also, the special effects, while rather cheesy by today’s standards, seem pretty impressive for 1936. The plot follows the story fairly well (well, Mr. Wells was a co-writer of the script, after all). It varies from the story in that it is framed front and back by scenes of the gods conversing about how humans would fare if given more powers than they currently have, and selecting a sort of guinea pig to give them to. The ending returns us to the aforementioned gods decrying the immaturity of man to responsibly handle such abilities, but ends on a (sort of) optimistic note. I rather enjoyed this addition, gave the story a context. The movie is available online.
“The Flowering of the Strange Orchid” is about a fellow who leads a humdrum existence and all he wants is to have an adventure. He is an amateur collector of orchids and becomes extremely interested in an exotic orchid from South America whose discoverer had been killed in a grisly manner. It’s an example of “be careful what you wish for,” but the ending of the story brought a smile and a chuckle.
All in all, I very much enjoyed this collection, as I like to read shorter, more obscure works by well-known authors. Recommended. Five stars.

[Williwaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over the weekend, I saw a hilarious old movie called "The Man Who Could Work Miracles." It was released in 1936, and it's based on an H.G. Wells story of the same name. If you like, you can watch it here:

Man Who Could Work Miracles

I had so much fun watching the movie that I decided to look for the original story. Happily, I recently received a box of old paperback books in the post, and among them was this volume: The Inexperienced Ghost.

So far, I've read the title story and The Man Who Could Work Miracles. It's interesting, because both stories remind me of other stories that I've read. The title story was somewhat reminiscent of Poe's Fact's in the Case of M. Valdemar. (It's quite inferior to Poe's story, although it's more believable.) TMWCWM seemed like a much cheered-up version of W.W. Jacobs' chilling story, The Monkey's Paw. The movie followed the story's basic outline, but was of course much more detailed.

The most amazing thing about Wells is how easy he is to read. Twenty pages go by like nothing! It's truly enjoyable, light entertainment.

This small volume seems to consist of what I would consider pure fantasy stories. It's not a science fiction book. Although Wells is often considered the father of sf, his writing was prolific and varied. This book definitely shows his versatility.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5. There were some interesting stories included in this little anthology, but some were rather dry or a bit offensive to more modern ways of thinking. Overall though, I enjoyed this collection of short stories of the fantastic.

[Tell Tale Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

-Gregory Kerkman