Monday 9 June 2008

John S. Partington, ed., H. G. Wells in Nature, 1893-1946: A Reception Reader (Peter Lang 2008) ISBN 9783631571101



Since its foundation in 1869 Nature has consistently been the pre-eminent English-language science journal, and for a period of over fifty years, H. G. Wells was a central feature within its pages. In H. G. Wells in Nature, John S. Partington collects all of Wells's writings in Nature, all of the reviews of his works published by Nature, and all of the journal's reportage that featured him. In addition to this core material, however, Partington has included the many responses that these essays and reviews received, thereby offering the reader a uniquely contectualised history of Wells's reception in Nature.


From the first review Wells received in 1893 to his obituary notice in 1946, this volume presents a fascinating history of Wells's work and thought as filtered through the prism of Nature. During his long career no other journal featured Wells within its pages so consistently, and with contributions by such eminent thinkers as Richard Gregory, E. Ray Lankester, J. S. Haldane, Lancelot Hogben, F. S. Marvin, A. Carr-Saunders, J. B. S. Haldane, Karl Pearson and Hilaire Belloc, Nature can truly be said to have played a key role in moulding opinion about Wells's work and thought. http://www.peterlang.com/Index.cfm?vID=57110&vHR=1&vUR=2&vUUR=1&vLang=E

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Table of Contents


  • Abbreviations

  • General Introduction and Acknowledgements

  • Part 1: The Essays, Reviews and Letters by H. G. Wells

1.1 ‘Popularising Science’

1.2 ‘Science, in School and After School’

1.3 ‘Peculiarities of Psychical Research’

1.4 ‘The Sequence of Studies’

1.5 ‘Bio-optimism’

1.6 ‘The Discovery of the Future’

1.7 ‘Education and Research’

1.8 ‘Men of Letters and Science in Russia’

1.9 ‘Scientific Neglect of the Mas d’Azil’

1.10 ‘The Idea of a World Encyclopaedia’

1.11 ‘Biology for the Million’

1.12 ‘The Man of Science as Aristocrat’

1.13 ‘The Illusion of Personality’


  • Part 2: Reviews of the Works of H. G. Wells

2.1 Text-book of Biology and Text-book of Zoology

2.2 The Time Machine

2.3 ‘Human Evolution, an Artificial Process’

2.4 The War of the Worlds

2.5 The First Men in the Moon

2.6 Anticipations, Mankind in the Making and The Food of the Gods

2.7 A Modern Utopia

2.8 In the Days of the Comet

2.9 The Future in America

2.10 What is Coming?

2.11 The Outline of History and Mr Belloc Objects to ‘The Outline of History’

2.12 The Salvaging of Civilisation

2.13 A Short History of the World

2.14 Men Like Gods

2.15 The Story of a Great Schoolmaster

2.16 The World of William Clissold

2.17 The Short Stories of H. G. Wells

2.18 The Way the World is Going, The Open Conspiracy and What Are We To Do With Our Lives?

2.19 The Science of Life

2.20 The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind

2.21 After Democracy

2.22 The Shape of Things to Come

2.23 Experiment in Autobiography

2.24 The New America: The New World

2.25 Things to Come

2.26 Man Who Could Work Miracles

2.27 Anatomy of Frustration

2.28 Star Begotten

2.29 The Camford Visitation

2.30 World Brain

2.31 The Fate of Homo Sapiens, The New World Order and The Outlook for Homo Sapiens

2.32 Babes in the Darkling Wood

2.33 The Conquest of Time

2.34 Phoenix

2.35 Reshaping Man’s Heritage

2.36 ’42 to ’44


  • Part 3: Other Mentions

3.1 ‘Science Teaching – an Ideal, and some Realities’ (1894)

3.2 Richard Gregory, from ‘National Aspects of Education’ (1913)

3.3 The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the British Science Guild (1917)

3.4 The Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the British Science Guild (1922)

3.5 ‘The Duty and Service of Science in the New Era’ (1922)

3.6 Wells as Labour Party Candidate (1922-23)

3.7 ‘Evolution and Intellectual Freedom’ (1925)

3.8 Chair of Social Biology (1930)

3.9 Hyman Levy, ‘Science in Literature’ (1931)

3.10 ‘British-American Understanding’ (1937)

3.11 ‘The Informative Content of Education’ (1937)

3.12 Social Relations of Science (1938)

3.13 Brenda Tripp, ‘Science and the Citizen: The Public Understanding of Science’ (1943)

3.14 Fellowships of Imperial College, London (1943)

3.15 Doctorates of the University of London (1943)

3.16 ‘Thoughts on Reconstruction’ (19 February 1944)

3.17 The Death of H. G. Wells (1946)


  • Short Biographies

  • Bibliography