This is the annotated edition including the rare biographical essay by Edwin E. Slosson called “H. G. Wells — A Major Prophet Of His Time”.
In “Kipps” Mr. Wells emphasizes an unfamiliar phase of his many-sided talent. Unlike the majority of his fiction, dealing with unknown worlds and with futurity, “Kipps” is a story of the present moment and living people. Its scene is England—Folkestone and nearby towns of the south coast mainly, and London for a few chapters —and its characters all move in that social world that is constantly struggling for a position beyond and above it. Kipps' himself emerges in Mr. Wells's first chapter as a mere boy on his way to a strange home, with his uncle and aunt. He passes through several evolutionary stages from poverty to affluence, and from affluence through a despondent moment of failure and despair to the competency and comfort of a secure position in the world to which he belongs by birth and breeding. His career is portrayed by Mr. Wells with extraordinary vigor, truth, and humor. It scarcely exceeds rashness to say that not since “David Copperfield” has English literature been enriched with so remarkable a story of the growth of a boy through youth into manhood.
