"A Story of the Days To Come" is a novella by H. G. Wells comprising five chapters first published in the June to October 1897 issues of The Pall Mall Magazine. It was later included in a 1899 collection of Wells' short stories, Tales of Space & Time. The chapter titles "The Cure for Love" "The Vacant Country" "The Ways of the City" "Underneath" "Bindon Intervenes" The novella depicts two lovers in a dystopian London of the 22nd century. They explore the implications of excessive urbanization, class warfare, & advances in the technology of medicine, communication, transportation & agriculture. Like "When the Sleeper Wakes", published in the same year, the stories extrapolate the trends Wells observed in nineteenth-century Victorian London two hundred years into the future. London of the early 22nd century is over 30 million people in population, with the lower classes living in subterranean dwellings, the middle & upper classes living in skyscrapers & largely communal accommodations. Moving walkways interconnect the city, with fast air-travel & superhighways available between cities. The countryside is largely abandoned. Many aspects of the world of these two stories will be instantly familiar to readers of the more popular Isaac Asimov's Robot series written 50 years later. Altho no apparent citation exists crediting Wells' world as the source for the Asimov stories' settings & culture, the parallels between the two are striking.
Author
Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism. He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946. More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H.\_... http://www.online-literature.com/well... http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.\_G.\_Wells
