For those who knew Wells when - or want to

kw: book reviews, science fiction, short stories

When H.G. Wells gave Alvin Langdon Coburn free rein to provide photos for a collection of his stories, effectively making him co-editor, they broke new ground and set the stage for all later collaborations between author and photo-illustrator. In 1911, they produced The Door in the Wall and Other Stories, which has in recent years (1980) been reproduced to make this classic available again.

This was no introductory workpiece. The Time Machine had been published fifteen years previously and Wells was a household name. He gathered stories old and new, so the book has some insight into his development as a writer. The writing style throughout is the kind of self-conscious near-dialog with the reader that is characteristic of Victorian storytelling. This is Wells as your favorite uncle at the fireside, ruminating on the highlights of this or that extraordinary encounter or adventure.

The eight stories in this little book each develop a single idea: a youthful paradise lost; a new god served, bloodily; a seducer's comeuppance; and in the closing novella "The Country of the Blind", an extended study into whether the one-eyed man is truly king among the blind.

Wells had a rare ability to take a notion to which most writers would devote a two-page short story, and develop it into a six-page thesis, examining the idea from all sides, and wasting no words. When you're done with one of them, you feel you've been somewhere. Though these stories are typically far from comforting, you're glad you went.

No wonder Wells is still beloved.