When the Sleeper Wakes: A Critical Text of the 1899 New York and London First Edition, With an Introduction and Appendices (The Annotated H. G. Wells, 5)
by Herbert George Wells
Category: Literary Criticism

Critics rightly view When the Sleeper Wakes as a prototype of the anti-utopian novel, a genre developed by Zamyatin, Huxley, and Orwell into nightmare futures associated with the totalitarian age and the moral horrors of fascism and communism. Suppose, however, that Wells rather favored unlawful statist controls, if justified in a good cause by his own ideological lights? This is one possibility explored in the apparatus to the present edition. Annotated by the worlds leading Wellsian scholar, in Sleeper is found a greater measure of artistry and characterization than is usually accorded it. As a complex work combining technological with social speculation, Sleeper is unmatched for canniness in the history of futuristic literature. Indeed, its aeronautical details influenced the Wright Brothers in the design of their flyer, and the novel predicts the promotion of airplanes as a weapon, a prophecy dramatically fulfilled in the twentieth century. This exhaustive critical edition follows other influential titles in the series and features a lengthy introduction, appendices, bibliography and index, and a frontispiece taken from the original 1899 edition.