Mr. Blettsworthy On Rampole Island

by H.G. Wells

H. G. Wells. Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island.

Ernest Benn Limited, 1928. First edition. Octavo. 288 pages. Publisher's brown cloth with gilt spine titles.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Science Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1928

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

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1928, this is a chatty Wells novel, coddiwompling between social satire, Moreauvian adventure yarn, psychological fantasy, and intellectual prattle. A cursory peek at Wells’ literary output shows an unstoppably prodigious bench and, post-1912, a canon of increasingly unknown and unreprinted works, punctuated by a late-career masterpiece with The Shape of Things to Come in 1933. It is interesting to burrow into these buried novels to unearth the neglected pearls, a task I intend to perform across the rest of my sedentary, unsexy existence, expecting to find many middling and didactic tracts along the way, and the occasional rambling, improvisatory slice of piffle such as this. The reason for this wanton burrowing? I am a ravenous canon-eater. I munch on canons like rabid pandas gorging on bamboo to fatten themselves into unextinction. I usually end up puffy-eyed and bloated and slashing my literary lovers with scythes of snark around the 23rd novel mark. Furor scribendi.

[Viacheslav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the best H.G. Wells' work of fiction. It combines several author's favorite topics, namely love, marriage, politics, adventure and science fiction. The narrative is slightly reminiscent of his earlier works like "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "Tono Bungay", "The Research Magnificent". It seems that the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti had had some adverse effect on Wells' mental composure, which must have helped him imagine what insanity feels like.
While dealing with the general muddle-headedness, seen through the veil of one mind's idiosyncrasies, the author comes up, not surprisingly, with the old remedy, proclaiming the imminent creation of Utopia.
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2018 Update


H.G. Wells foretells Bezos and Amazon with amazing precision! This book must have been not entirely unknown to the Amazon's CEO when he set the whole thing up.

[Brolie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves way more credit than it gets. Brilliant entertaining weird and awesome. I loved it.

[Wreade1872 · Rating 4 out of 5]

"So that so far from Evolution being necessarily a strenuous upward progress.. it might become.. a graceless drift towards a dead end."

This is not the Robinson Crusoe knockoff you might think it is, given some of the cover art and the title.
So the first quarter almost felt like an Ealing comedy and i thought it was going to end up as a spoof of Crusoe. However the second quarter goes existentially and socially depressing like something by Orwell or Kafka.
The third quarter is the only one set on Rampole Island, whose natives reminded me strongly of the ones from Peter Jacksons remake of King Kong :) . This might also be the weak link in the narrative. Not on its own but in context of the rest of the story i don't think its as visceral or pointed as it needed to be and ends too abruptly perhaps, but its a minor quibble. The final quarter is set during and after WWI.
It really does feel like four or five different books in different genres, starring the same protagonist. I don't mean that its a mess, Wells just slides from one genre to another with consummate ease.

Perhaps it wouldn't be quite as surprising if this was written by a different author, someone who came to prominence in the 20's but to see an old hand like Wells write something which feels so on the edge for its time is very fun.
An extremely unvictorian novel taking in the social views, the advancements in social science, and the political views of its era.

Its still a little longer than felt necessary but a lot to like. Recommended for patient readers and stoics :) .

[Geoff Wisner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm astonished that this obscure H.G. Wells title has 15 ratings on Goodreads! I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person who had even heard of it. It's uneven but intriguing, with some fine writing.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I'd read nearly all of HG Wells' novels but found this one at an oxfam a couple months ago. It was definitely one of his odder books. A young posh boy grows up and decides to start the Waterstones of the Edwardian era, which doesn't work out very well, he goes on sea voyage, ends up with cannibals and then it all shifts and becomes the First World War. The shift definitely made me enjoy it more as till then it had been just a bit too colonial. But the problem with it for me was more that the main character was quite unlike able. He almost rapped his fiancée at the beginning of the book, which drove him mad for a month, but was still pretty unforgivable. So with such an unsympathetic hero I was much less interested in the philosophy. Definitely not one of Wells' best.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nutty but very likable and thought provoking.

[Pavlo Gladkoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Naively...

[Chris Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well… i just didnt like it. I’m usually ok with Wells but this i just didnt like. No particular reason it wasnt awful, i just … well didnt like it. I think that sums it up it was abit meh.

[Alex]

False