An unnamed narrator is the author of a prologue ("The Man Who Wrote in the Tower") and an epilogue ("The Window of the Tower"). In these short texts is depicted an encounter with a "happy, active-looking" old man: the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative, writing the story of his life immediately before and after "the Change." This narrative is divided into three "books": Book I: The Comet; Book II: The Green Vapours; and Book III: The New World. Book I, recounts that William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in ...
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An unnamed narrator is the author of a prologue ("The Man Who Wrote in the Tower") and an epilogue ("The Window of the Tower"). In these short texts is depicted an encounter with a "happy, active-looking" old man: the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative, writing the story of his life immediately before and after "the Change." This narrative is divided into three "books": Book I: The Comet; Book II: The Green Vapours; and Book III: The New World. Book I, recounts that William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank [a place where pottery is made] in Clayton, quits his job just as an economic recession caused by American dumping hits industrial Britain, and is unable to find another position.
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When I first picked up this book I thought it was going to be an apocalyptic novel. I assumed a comet hitting the earth would wreak devastation. It turned out to be a utopian novel. The comet is not a solid mass, as we know comets to be, but rather a ball of gas. This gas changes the nature of earth's atmosphere and thereby the nature of humanity. Most of the book concerns the lead character's search for revenge against the girl who jilted him. After the comet strike all such negative emotions as anger, fear, jealousy and hatred are eliminated from the human psyche. The remainder of the book is about how the narrator finds peace and happiness. There is an odd prologue in which Wells seems to be having a vision of an old man writing the story. Then there is an epilogue in which Wells is a bit taken aback at just how different the utopia is from our reality.