![]() ![]() ![]() Three of them are set in various parts of the ancient but sometimes gimcrack country south-west of London with which Wells was very familiar. The four books are all strikingly brief, but they launched in a seemingly effortless way all the major strands of science fiction and their endless progeny which still choke every bookshop and television screen in ways that Wells would have found both gratifying and alarming. When he had finished he had gone from total obscurity to being one of the most famous authors in the world. Wells wrote in quick succession, starting in 1894 at a desk in a Sevenoaks boarding-house: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds. This switch was first achieved when I decided to limit my holiday reading to the four extraordinary little fantasies that H. ![]() At Christmas I would read only short books. But a decade ago I took a decision which has made me happy ever since. I wrecked the holiday for years with the same repeated, idiotic misunderstanding, struggling to finish The Golden Bowl or The Way We Live Now or Daniel Deronda, until I began to hate the very idea of Christmas reading. Like so many other, reasonably busy individuals I used to think of Christmas as a great opportunity to read a big classic novel. ![]()
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