Boon E-Book

Herbert George Wells

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Wells’s satire on literature, „Boon” was originally published under the pseudonym Reginald Bliss; a follow-up to the Fabian-savaging „The New Machiavelli”. It purports, however, to be by the fictional character Reginald Bliss, and for some time after publication Wells denied authorship. „Boon” is best known for its part in Wells’s debate on the nature of literature with Henry James, who is caricatured in the book. But in „Boon” Wells also mocks himself, calling into question and ridiculing a notion he held dear – that of humanity’s collective consciousness. Among these pieces is the infamous parody of the late style of Henry James, all the more effective for being so distinctive a target. Describing James as the „culmination of the superficial type”, it is not surprising that the „indiscreet, ill-advised” content of Boon, as Wells describes it in his „Introduction”, put a serious strain on the relationship between the two authors.

Leseprobe

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. THE BACK OF MISS BATHWICK AND GEORGE BOON

CHAPTER II. BEING THE FIRST CHAPTER OF “THE MIND OF THE RACE”

CHAPTER III. THE GREAT SLUMP, THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS, AND THE GARDEN BY THE SEA

CHAPTER IV. OF ART, OF LITERATURE, OF MR. HENRY JAMES

CHAPTER V. OF THE ASSEMBLING AND OPENING OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE ON THE MIND OF THE RACE

CHAPTER VI. OF NOT LIKING HALLERY AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE

CHAPTER VII. WILKINS MAKES CERTAIN OBJECTIONS

CHAPTER VIII. THE BEGINNING OF “THE WILD ASSES OF THE DEVIL”

CHAPTER IX. THE HUNTING OF THE WILD ASSES OF THE DEVIL

CHAPTER X. THE STORY OF THE LAST TRUMP

INTRODUCTION

Whenever a publisher gets a book by one author he wants an Introduction written to it by another, and Mr. Fisher Unwin is no exception to the rule. Nobody reads Introductions, they serve no useful purpose, and they give no pleasure, but they appeal to the business mind, I think, because as a rule they cost nothing. At any rate, by the pressure of a certain inseparable intimacy between Mr. Reginald Bliss and myself, this Introduction has been extracted from me. I will confess that I have not read his book through, though I have a kind of first-hand knowledge of its contents, and that it seems to me an indiscreet, ill-advised book....

I have a very strong suspicion that this Introduction idea is designed to entangle me in the responsibility for the book. In America, at any rate, “The Life of George Meek, Bath Chairman,” was ascribed to me upon no better evidence. Yet any one who likes may go to Eastbourne and find Meek with chair and all complete. But in view of the complications of the book market and the large simplicities of the public mind, I do hope that the reader–and by that I mean the reviewer–will be able to see the reasonableness and the necessity of distinguishing between me and Mr. Reginald Bliss. I do not wish to escape the penalties of thus participating in, and endorsing, his manifest breaches of good taste, literary decorum, and friendly obligation, but as a writer whose reputation is already too crowded and confused and who is for the ordinary purposes of every day known mainly as a novelist, I should be glad if I could escape the public identification I am now repudiating. Bliss is Bliss and Wells is Wells. And Bliss can write all sorts of things that Wells could not do.

This Introduction has really no more to say than that.

H.G. WELLS.