The Plattner Story / H.G. Wells

Whether the story of Gottfried Plattner is to be credited or not is a

pretty question in the value of evidence. On the one hand, we have seven

witnesses--to be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairs of eyes,

and one undeniable fact; and on the other we have--what is it?--prejudice,

common-sense, the inertia of opinion. Never were there seven more

honest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more undeniable fact than the

inversion of Gottfried Plattner's anatomical structure, and--never was

there a more preposterous story than the one they have to tell! The most

preposterous part of the story is the worthy Gottfried's contribution (for

I count him as one of the seven).

The Obliterated Man / H.G. Wells

I was--you shall hear immediately why I am not now--Egbert Craddock

Cummins. The name remains. I am still (Heaven help me!) Dramatic Critic to

the _Fiery Cross_. What I shall be in a little while I do not know. I

write in great trouble and confusion of mind. I will do what I can to make

myself clear in the face of terrible difficulties. You must bear with me a

little. When a man is rapidly losing his own identity, he naturally finds

a difficulty in expressing himself. I will make it perfectly plain in a

minute, when once I get my grip upon the story. Let me see--where

_am_ I? I wish I knew. Ah, I have it! Dead self! Egbert Craddock

Cummins!

The Sea Raiders / H.G. Wells

I.

Until the extraordinary affair at Sidmouth, the peculiar species

_Haploteuthis ferox_ was known to science only generically, on the

strength of a half-digested tentacle obtained near the Azores, and a

decaying body pecked by birds and nibbled by fish, found early in 1896 by

Mr. Jennings, near Land's End.

Under the Knife / H.G. Wells

"What if I die under it?" The thought recurred again and again, as I

walked home from Haddon's. It was a purely personal question. I was spared

the deep anxieties of a married man, and I knew there were few of my

intimate friends but would find my death troublesome chiefly on account of

their duty of regret. I was surprised indeed, and perhaps a little

humiliated, as I turned the matter over, to think how few could possibly

exceed the conventional requirement. Things came before me stripped of

glamour, in a clear dry light, during that walk from Haddon's house over

Primrose Hill. There were the friends of my youth: I perceived now that

our affection was a tradition, which we foregathered rather laboriously to

maintain. There were the rivals and helpers of my later career: I suppose

I had been cold-blooded or undemonstrative--one perhaps implies the other.

The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham / H.G. Wells

I set this story down, not expecting it will be believed, but, if

possible, to prepare a way of escape for the next victim. He, perhaps, may

profit by my misfortune. My own case, I know, is hopeless, and I am now in

some measure prepared to meet my fate.

My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at Trentham, in Staffordshire,

my father being employed in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I was

three years old, and my father when I was five, my uncle, George Eden,

then adopting me as his own son.

The Treasure in the Forest / H.G. Wells

The canoe was now approaching the land. The bay opened out, and a gap in

the white surf of the reef marked where the little river ran out to the

sea; the thicker and deeper green of the virgin forest showed its course

down the distant hill slope. The forest here came close to the beach. Far

beyond, dim and almost cloudlike in texture, rose the mountains, like

suddenly frozen waves. The sea was still save for an almost imperceptible

swell. The sky blazed.

The Moth / H.G. Wells

Probably you have heard of Hapley--not W. T. Hapley, the son, but the

celebrated Hapley, the Hapley of _Periplaneta Hapliia_, Hapley the

entomologist.

If so you know at least of the great feud between Hapley and Professor

Pawkins, though certain of its consequences may be new to you. For those

who have not, a word or two of explanation is necessary, which the idle

reader may go over with a glancing eye, if his indolence so incline him.

The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes / H.G. Wells

I.

The transitory mental aberration of Sidney Davidson, remarkable enough in

itself, is still more remarkable if Wade's explanation is to be credited.

It sets one dreaming of the oddest possibilities of intercommunication in

the future, of spending an intercalary five minutes on the other side of

the world, or being watched in our most secret operations by unsuspected

eyes. It happened that I was the immediate witness of Davidson's seizure,

and so it falls naturally to me to put the story upon paper.

In the Avu Observatory / H.G. Wells

The observatory at Avu, in Borneo, stands on the spur of the mountain. To

the north rises the old crater, black at night against the unfathomable

blue of the sky. From the little circular building, with its mushroom

dome, the slopes plunge steeply downward into the black mysteries of the

tropical forest beneath. The little house in which the observer and his

assistant live is about fifty yards from the observatory, and beyond this

are the huts of their native attendants.

The Flowering of the Strange Orchid / H.G. Wells

The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. You

have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you

must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good luck, as your

taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may be just a

respectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps--for the thing

has happened again and again--there slowly unfolds before the delighted

eyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novel

richness, a strange twist of the labellum, or some subtler colouration or

unexpected mimicry. Pride, beauty, and profit blossom together on one

delicate green spike, and, it may be, even immortality. For the new

miracle of nature may stand in need of a new specific name, and what so

convenient as that of its discoverer? "John-smithia"! There have been

worse names.

The Stolen Bacillus / H.G. Wells

"This again," said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the

microscope, "is well,--a preparation of the Bacillus of cholera--the

cholera germ."

The pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He was evidently not

accustomed to that kind of thing, and held a limp white hand over his

disengaged eye. "I see very little," he said.

The Jilting of Jane / H.G. Wells

As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane bumping her way

downstairs with a brush and dust-pan. She used in the old days to sing

hymn tunes, or the British national song for the time being, to these

instruments, but latterly she has been silent and even careful over her

work. Time was when I prayed with fervour for such silence, and my wife

with sighs for such care, but now they have come we are not so glad as we

might have anticipated we should be. Indeed, I would rejoice secretly,

though it may be unmanly weakness to admit it, even to hear Jane sing

"Daisy," or, by the fracture of any plate but one of Euphemia's best green

ones, to learn that the period of brooding has come to an end.

The Valley of Spiders / H.G. Wells

Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle.

The Truth about Pyecraft / H.G. Wells

He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye-- it meets me with an expression.

It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it.

Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who would believe me if I did tell?

The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost / H.G. Wells

The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying--of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man.

The Stolen Body / H.G. Wells

Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, and Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well known among those interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded and conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead of living in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living, and in November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunction with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility of projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will through space.

The Star / H.G. Wells

It was on the first day of the New Year that the announcement was made, almost simultaneously from three observatories, that the motion of the planet Neptune, the outermost of all the planets that wheel about the sun, had become very erratic. Ogilvy had already called attention to a suspected retardation in its velocity in December. Such a piece of news was scarcely calculated to interest a world the greater portion of whose inhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune, nor outside the astronomical profession did the subsequent discovery of a faint remote speck of light in the region of the perturbed planet cause any very great excitement. Scientific people, however, found the intelligence remarkable enough, even before it became known that the new body was rapidly growing larger and brighter, that its motion was quite different from the orderly progress of the planets, and that the deflection of Neptune and its satellite was becoming now of an unprecedented kind.

The New Accelerator / H.G. Wells

Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations will become apparent enough.

Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland / H.G. Wells

"There's a man in that shop," said the Doctor, "who has been in Fairyland."

"Nonsense!" I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window. "Tell me about it," I said, after a pause.

"I don't know," said the Doctor. "He's an ordinary sort of lout-- Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it like Bible truth."

I reverted presently to the topic.

Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation / H.G. Wells

My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an elaborate clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination to be firm and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant alike. He is a sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many of the secret practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather than interesting things. His conversation is copious and given much to needless detail. By many, indeed, his intercourse is condemned, to put it plainly, as "boring," and such have even done me the compliment to wonder why I countenance him.