The Wheels of Chance is an early comic novel by H. G. Wells about an August 1895 cycling holiday, somewhat in the style of Three Men in a Boat.
Mr. Hoopdriver, is a frustrated "draper's assistant" in Putney, a badly paid, grinding position (and one which Wells briefly held); and yet he owns a bicycle and is setting out on a bicycling tour of...More
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.
During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft,...More
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.
During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering. Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction".
His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898) and the military science fiction The War in the Air (1907). Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
Book Summary
The Wheels of Chance is an early comic novel by H. G. Wells about an August 1895 cycling holiday, somewhat in the style of Three Men in a Boat.
Mr. Hoopdriver, is a frustrated "draper's assistant" in Putney, a badly paid, grinding position (and one which Wells briefly held); and yet he owns a bicycle and is setting out on a bicycling tour of "the Southern Coast" on his annual ten days' holiday. Hoopdriver survives his frustration by escaping in his imagination into a world of fantasy…
It was written at the height of the cycling craze (1890–1905), when practical, comfortable bicycles first became widely and cheaply available and before the rise of the automobile. The advent of the bicycle stirred sudden and profound changes in the social life of England. Even the working class could travel substantial distances, quickly and cheaply, and the very idea of travelling for pleasure became a possibility for thousands of people for the first time. This new freedom affected many. It began to weaken the rigid English class structure and it gave an especially powerful boost to the existing movement toward female emancipation. Wells explored these social changes in his story.
(wikipedia)
H.g. Wells
