The Future as Nightmare: H. G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians

210 Pages·1967·17.457 MB·English

by  Mark Robert Hillegas

THE FUTURE AS NIGHTMARE
H. G. Wells and the Anti-utopians
MARK R. HILLEGAS
1967 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
THE FUTURE AS NIGHTMARE
H. G. Wells and the Anti-utopians
Copyright © 1967 by Mark R. Hillegas
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 67-28128
Printed in the United States of America
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
record my thanks to the Research Council of
WISH TO
Colgate University for grants for travel, photocopying, and
the purchase of books, as well as for a fellowship which en
abled me to begin to bring order to the material I had been
gathering. For financial assistance as I completed the manu
script, I am grateful for the generosity of Southern Illinois
University. To Professor Harris W. Wilson of the University
of Illinois, I am indebted for a helpful introduction to the
Wells Archive at Illinois.
For permission to quote from 'copyrighted material, I
wish to thank various publishers, periodicals, and literary
agents. In the United States I am indebted to the follow
ing: Brandt and Brandt for quotations from George Orwell's
v
Nineteen Eighty-four (copyright 1949 by Harcourt, Brace
and World, Inc., reprinted by permission of Brandt and
Brandt); E. P. Dutton, Inc., for quotations from Evgenii
Zamya tin' s We, trans. Gregory Zilboorg; Harcourt, Brace
and World for quotations from George Orwell's The Road
to Wigan Pier and Dickens, Dali and Others and for quo
tations from E. M. Forster's Two Cheers for Democracy
and The Eternal Moment and Other Stories; Harper and
Row, Publishers, for quotations from Aldous Huxley's Brave
New World and Point Counter Point and for quotations
from J. B. S. Haldane's Possible Worlds; The Macmillan
of
Company for quotations from C. S. Lewis's Out the
Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength, for quotations
from George Kateb's Utopia and Its Enemies, and for quo
tations from B. F. Skinner's Walden Two; The Nation for
a quotation from Martin Green's "Distaste for the Con
temporary"; Princeton University Press for quotations from
Frederick C. Crews's E. M. Forster: The Perils of Human
ism; Random House, Inc., for a quotation from Walter
Van Tilburg Clark's "The Portable Phonograph," in The
Watchful Gods and Other Stories; Scott Meredith Literary
Agency, Inc., for a quotation from John Wyndham's Re
Birth (copyright 1955 by John Wyndham, reprinted by
permission of the author and the author's agents, Scott
Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.); Peter Smith, Publisher,
for a quotation from Henry Adams's The Degradation of the
Democratic Dogma; the University of Nebraska Press for
quotations from H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia (a Bison
Book edition); W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., for quo
tations from Martin Green's Science and the Shabby Curate
of Poetry; The Viking Press, Inc., for a quotation from Gra
ham Greene's "A Discovery in the Woods," in A Sense of
Reality; and Henry Z. Walck, Inc., for a quotation from
Roger Lancelyn Green's C. S. Lewis.
In England I am indebted to the following: first of all,
•
VI
to A. P. Watt and Son, Ltd., Literary Agents for the Estate
of H. G. Wells, for numerous quotations from the writ
ings of H. G. Wells; Arthur Barker, Ltd. for a quotation
from Norman Nicholson's H. G. Wells; The Bodley Head,
Ltd. for quotations from C. S. Lewis's Out of the Silent
Planet and That Hideous Strength; A. M. Heath and Com
pany, Ltd. for quotations from Karel Capek's "The Mean
ing of .R. U.R.," in the Saturday Review (London), July 21,
1923; and Longmans, Green and Co., Limited for quota
tions fron1 Martin Green's Science and the Shabby Curate
of Poetry.
Small portions of this book have appeared, in son1ewhat
different form, in the Papers of the Michigan Academy of
Science, Arts, and Letters, the New Mexico Quarterly, and
in my Introduction to the University of Nebraska Press edi
tion of H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia. I wish to express
my gratitude for permission to use this material here.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge a more general indebt
edness to the encouragement or stimulus of certain indi
viduals. My interest in the impact of science on the literary
imagination began while studying at Columbia University
some ten years ago, and accordingly lowe a debt to Pro
fessor Marjorie Hope Nicolson. Similarly, I must mention
Professor Warner G. Rice of the University of Michigan:
in discussions with him I came to see new dimensions to the
problem of utopia and anti-utopia. I also value highly the
many conversations about H. G. Wells which I have had
with my friend Professor Richard H. Costa, now at Purdue
University. And I am grateful for the valuable forum for the
exchange of ideas which Professor Thomas D. Clareson of
the College of Wooster has provided by keeping alive the
MLA Conference on Science Fiction.
M. R. H.
Carbondale, Illinois
July 1967
••
VIl
KEY TO ABBREVIATED CITATIONS
WELLS
TM The Time Machine in Seven Science
IsM The Island of Dr. Moreau Fiction Novels of
WW The War of the Worlds H. C. Wells. New
FMM The First Men in the Moon York, 1950.
WSW When the Sleeper Wakes } in Three Prophetic
SDC "A Story of the Days To Come" Novels of H. C.
Wells. New York,
195
2.
MU A Modern Utopia. Lincoln, Neb., 1967.
MLC Men Like Cods, in 28 Science Fiction Stories of H. C.
Wells. New York, 1952.
WA The War in the Air, in Three Science Fiction Novels
by H. C. Wells. New York, 1963.
•
IX
FORSTER
MS "The Machine Stops," in The Eternal Moment. Lon
don, 1928.
CAPEK
R.U.R. R.U.R., in Of Men and Machines, ed. Arthur O. Lewis,
Jr.
New York, 1963'
ZAMYATIN
We We, trans. Gregory Zilboorg. New York, 1959.
HW Herbert Wells, in Litsa [Faces]. New York, 1955
HUXLEY
BNW Brave New World. New York, 1946.
ORWELL
1984 Nineteen Eighty-four. New York, 1949.
LEWIS
OSP Out of the Silent Planet. New York, 1944.
Perl Perelandra. New York, 1944.
HS The Hideous Strength. New York, 1946.
x
CONTENTS
I /
HAPTER 3
II / 16
III / 40
IV / 56
V / 82
110
VI /
VII / 133
VIII / 145
Epilogue / 163
-
Notes / 181
A Selected Bibliography / 19°
Index / 193
•
Xl