When the Sleeper Wakes

Abstract

Throughout the winter of 1897–8 Wells was simultaneously at work on two totally dissimilar works of fiction: Love and Mr. Lewisham, a realistic novel based in large measure on his experiences as a student at Midhurst and in London, and When the Sleeper Wakes, a fantastic romance set in the year 2100. He was also working at a number of short stories and worried by ominous signs of ill health. He was anxious to complete one or other of his full-length novels before holidaying in Rome with his wife and his friend George Gissing, but some instinct warned him against hastening the conclusion of Love and Mr. Lewisham. This was not in fact completed until January 1899, but he had to admit later that he ‘scamped the finish’ of When the Sleeper Wakes in his anxiety to press on with his next project.¹¹ The work bears all the hallmarks of hasty writing; so much so that Wells, conscious of its defects, produced a revised version in 1910 under the title The Sleeper Awakes. The revision is slightly shorter than the original, but does not differ substantially from his original conception. He remained dissatisfied with it and described it later as ‘one of the most ambitious and least satisfactory of my works’.¹²