This is the annotated edition including the rare biographical essay by Edwin E. Slosson called “H. G. Wells — A Major Prophet Of His Time”.
Several of Mr. Wells's books have been studies of society from the general standpoint; but in some of his later stories, such as “The New Machiavelli” and “The Passionate Friends,” he has been more interested in thinking of what the individual life could do in and for society. His book, “The Research Magnificent.” is the story of a man who, being unlimited by minor matters, set himself to find some “theory of his work and duty in the world, a plan of the world's future that should give a rule to his life.” “A world-state sustained by an aristocracy of noble men,” — that idea or theory is not new to a reader of Wells; but here will be found someone who tried to work out some practical way in the matter. “Not a novel,” one may readily say,— just as White, the literary man who was called to look over Benham's papers, said, when the magnificent search had come to an end. It is not unlike those autobiographical novels that (as Mr. Wells once wrote) “were popular throughout the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century.” It is the work of a novelist, of course,— a story by a man who feels things keenly, a man who is sensitive, appreciative, humorous, whimsical. But it is chiefly a matter of record, valuable for the results it has in it.
