Tono-Bungay - Softcover

Wells, H. G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1605971057 ISBN 13: 9781605971056

Publisher: Book Jungle, 2008

Synopsis

George Ponderovo's quiet young life is changed for ever when he is forced to leave home and is apprenticed to his dynamic Uncle Edward in his chemist's shop. Edward, determined to 'strike out', invents a bogus medicine called Tono-Bungay which earns him a vast fortune. George's share of the wealth enables him to live out his fantasies by building an aeroplane. As he witnesses the spectacular rise of the Tono-Bungay empire he contemplates a corrupt English society that allows his uncle to wield so much power. This is the only popular edition of the text to include Wells's final revisions. The notes explain his multi-layered allusions, and the Introduction places the novel in its literary and historical context.

About this title

Review:

A brilliant satire on advertising and the popular press (GUARDIAN)

Wells' greatest literary achievement . . . manages to segue, quite smoothly and methodically, from Dickensian comedy to naturalist love story to sociological commentary to Victorian aeronautical adventure to erotic tragedy and, finally, to a kind of humanist threnody about the past, present and future of England (SALON)

A wide-ranging Condition of England novel that contains some of Wells's most powerful writing, especially its descriptions of London (David Lodge GUARDIAN)

About the Author:

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946), known primarily as H. G. Wells, was a prolific English writer in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, and social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. He is now best remembered for his science fiction novels, and Wells is called the father of science fiction, along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine(1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). Wells' earliest specialized training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote little science fiction, while he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of journalist. Novels like Kipps and The History of Mr Polly, which describe lower-middle-class life, led to the suggestion, when they were published, that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole.

About this edition

• Publisher: Book Jungle
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1605971057
• ISBN 13: 9781605971056
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352