A Modern Utopia

Front Cover
The Floating Press, May 1, 2009 - Fiction - 447 pages
H. G. Wells' A Modern Utopia is a fusion of fiction and philosophy. In it Wells' explores his ideas for social change, the creation of a world state and of what would be needed to facilitate increases in overall human happiness. The people of this utopia have to plan for "a flexible common compromise, in which a perpetually novel succession of individualities may converge most effectually upon a comprehensive onward development." This is Wells' distinction from past conceptions of utopia, that its people aim to be Utopian and that they are essentially the same people that would exist in an ordinary society.
 

Contents

A Note to the Reader
4
The Owner of the Voice
9
Chapter the First Topographical
13
Chapter the Second Concerning Freedoms
41
Chapter the Third Utopian Economics
82
Chapter the Fourth The Voice of Nature
127
Chapter the Fifth Failure in a Modern Utopia
153
Chapter the Sixth Women in a Modern Utopia
197
Chapter the Seventh A Few Utopian Impressions
237
Chapter the Eighth My Utopian Self
273
Chapter the Ninth The Samurai
286
Chapter the Tenth Race in Utopia
352
Chapter the Eleventh The Bubble Bursts
388
Appendix Scepticism of the Instrument
415
Endnotes
440
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2009)

H. G. Wells was born in Bromley, England on September 21, 1866. After a limited education, he was apprenticed to a draper, but soon found he wanted something more out of life. He read widely and got a position as a student assistant in a secondary school, eventually winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Science in South Kensington, where he studied biology. He graduated from London University in 1888 and became a science teacher. He also wrote for magazines. When his stories began to sell, he left teaching to write full time. He became an author best known for science fiction novels and comic novels. His science fiction novels include The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Wonderful Visit, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon, and The Food of the Gods. His comic novels include Love and Mr. Lewisham, Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, The History of Mr. Polly, and Tono-Bungay. He also wrote several short story collections including The Stolen Bacillus, The Plattner Story, and Tales of Space and Time. He died on August 13, 1946 at the age of 79.

Bibliographic information