Books by Wells, H. G.
- Wells, H. G.
Floor Games.
Springfield, VA: Skirmisher, [1911] 2006.
ISBN 0-9722511-7-0.
-
Two years before he penned the classic work on wargaming,
Little
Wars (September 2006),
H. G. Wells drew on his experience and that of his
colleagues “F.R.W.” and “G.P.W.” (his
sons Frank Richard and George Philip, then aged eight and ten
respectively) to describe the proper equipment, starting with a
sufficiently large and out-of-the-traffic floor, which imaginative
children should have at their disposal to construct the worlds of
adventure conjured by their fertile minds. He finds much to
deplore in the offerings of contemporary toy shops, and shows
how wooden bricks, sturdy paper, plasticine clay, twigs
and sprigs from the garden, books from the library, and
odds and ends rescued from the trash bin can be assembled
into fantasy worlds, “the floor, the boards, the
bricks, the soldiers, and the railway system—that pentagram
for exorcising the evil spirit of dulness from the lives of little
boys and girls” (p. 65).
The entire book is just 71 pages with large type and wide
margins filled with delightful line drawings; eight
photographs by the author illustrate what can be made of
such simple components. The text is, of course, in the public
domain, and is available in a free
Project
Gutenberg edition, but without the illustrations and
photos. This edition includes a foreword by legendary
wargame designer
James F. Dunnigan.
While toys have changed enormously since this book
was written, young humans haven't. A parent who
provides their kids these simple stimuli to imagination
and ingenuity is probably doing them an invaluable
service compared to the present-day default of planting
them in front of a television program or video game.
Besides, if the collectivist morons in Seattle who
banned
Lego blocks launch the next educationalism fad, it'll be up to
parents to preserve imagination and individuality in their children's
play.
April 2007
- Wells, H. G. The Last War. Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press, [1914] 2001. ISBN 0-8032-9820-X.
- This novel was originally published in 1914 as The
World Set Free. Only the title has been changed in this
edition.
September 2002
- Wells, H. G.
Little Wars.
Springfield, VA: Skirmisher, [1913] 2004.
ISBN 0-9722511-5-4.
-
I have been looking for a copy of this book for more than
twenty-five years. In this 1913 classic, H. G. Wells
essentially single-handedly invented the modern pastime of
miniature wargaming, providing a (tin soldier) battle-tested
set of rules which makes for exciting, well-balanced, and
unpredictable games which can be played by two or more people
in an afternoon and part of an evening. Interestingly, he
avoids much of the baggage that burdens contemporary
games such as icosahedral dice and indirect fire
calculations, and strictly minimises the rôle of chance,
using nothing fancier than a coin toss, and that only in
rare circumstances.
The original edition couldn't have appeared at a less auspicious time:
published just a year before the outbreak of the horrific Great War (a
term Wells uses, prophetically, to speak of actual military conflict
in this book). The work is, of course, long out of copyright and text
editions are available on the Internet, including
this one at
Project Gutenberg, but they are unsatisfying because the text
makes frequent reference to the nineteen photographs by Wells's second
wife, Amy Catherine Wells, which are not included in the on-line
editions but reproduced in this volume. Even if you aren't interested
in the details, just seeing grown men in suits scrunching down on the
ground playing with toy soldiers is worth the price of admission. The
original edition included almost 150 delightful humorous line
drawings by J. R. Sinclair; sadly, only about half are reproduced
here, but that's better than none at all. This edition includes a
new foreword by Gary Gygax, inventor of Dungeons and Dragons.
Radical feminists of the dour and scornful persuasion should be
sure to take their medication before reading the subtitle
or the last paragraph on page 6 (lines 162–166 of the
Gutenberg edition).
September 2006
- Wells, H. G. Mind at the End of Its Tether
and The Happy Turning. New York: Didier,
1946. LCCN 47-002117.
- This thin volume, published in the year of the author's
death, contains Wells' final essay, Mind at the End of
Its Tether, along with The Happy Turning,
his dreamland escape from grim, wartime England. If you've a
low tolerance for blasphemy, you'd best give the latter a pass.
The unrelenting pessimism of the former limited its appeal; press
runs were small and it has rarely been reprinted. The link above
will find all editions containing the main work, Mind at the
End of Its Tether. Bear in mind when pricing used copies that
both essays together are less than 90 pages, with Mind
alone a mere 34.
July 2003
- Wells, H. G. The Time Machine. London:
Everyman, [1895, 1935] 1995. ISBN 0-460-87735-6.
- Now available online at this site.
May 2002