The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents (1895) gathers H. G. Wells's early short fiction at the moment when Victorian scientific optimism begins to shade into modern anxiety. These brisk, ironic tales transform laboratories, drawing rooms, and city streets into sites of intellectual disturbance, where microbes, inventions, and improbable accidents expose the fragility of social order. Written in a lucid, journalistic style sharpened by satire and grotesque comedy, the collection belongs to the late nineteenth-century tradition of scientific romance while anticipating the speculative precision of modern science fiction. Wells's own formation is crucial to the book's force. Trained in biology under T. H. Huxley and shaped by experiences of class insecurity, illness, journalism, and teaching, he brought to fiction both scientific literacy and a reformer's impatience with complacency. His fascination with evolution, contagion, and technological power informs these stories, yet so does his gift for observing vanity, fear, and moral absurdity in ordinary people. This volume is recommended to readers seeking Wells beyond his famous novels: concise, inventive, and intellectually mischievous. It offers a revealing entry into his imagination and into the cultural tensions of the fin de siècle. This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience. - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - The Author Biography highlights personal milestones and literary influences that shape the entire body of writing. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era-social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand-picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
Take a distinguished historian, a long and bloody war against an apparently invincible enemy, and you have a good recipe for what promises to be a classic series
Vorwort
A brilliant Napoleonic military fiction series from one of the UK's brightest young historians.
Autorentext
Adrian Goldsworthy has a doctorate from Oxford University. His books have sold more than a quarter of a million copies and been translated into more than a dozen languages. A full-time author, he regularly contributes to TV documentaries on Roman themes and has lectured on Roman history in both the UK and USA.
Klappentext
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Stolen Bacillus and other incidents (The original 1895 edition of 15 fantasy and science fiction short stories)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents is a collection of fifteen fantasy and science fiction short stories written by the English author H. G. Wells between 1893 and 1895. It was first published by Methuen & Co. in 1895 and was Wells's first book of short stories. All of the stories had first been published in various weekly and monthly periodicals.
Table of contents:
"The Stolen Bacillus" (Pall Mall Budget, 21 June 1894)
"The Flowering of the Strange Orchid" (Pall Mall Budget, 2 August 1894)
"In the Avu Observatory" (Pall Mall Budget, 9 August 1894)
"The Triumphs of a Taxidermist" (Pall Mall Gazette, 3 March 1894)
"A Deal in Ostriches" (Pall Mall Budget, 20 December 1894)
"Through a Window" (Black and White, 25 August 1894)
"The Temptation of Harringay" (The St. James's Gazette, 9 February 1895)
"The Flying Man" (Pall Mall Gazette, December 1893)
"The Diamond Maker" (Pall Mall Budget, 16 August 1894)
"Æpyornis Island" (Pall Mall Budget, 27 December 1894)
"The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes" (Pall Mall Budget, 28 March 1895)
"The Lord of the Dynamos" (Pall Mall Budget, 6 September 1894)
"The Hammerpond Park Burglary" (Pall Mall Budget, 5 July 1894)
"The Moth" (Pall Mall Gazette, 28 March 1895)
"The Treasure in the Forest" (Pall Mall Budget, 23 August 1894)
Herbert George "H. G." Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is one person sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction", as are Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau.