Customer Reviews

When the Sleeper Wakes: A Critical Text of the 1899 New York and London First Edition, With an Introduction and Appendices (The Annotated H. G. Wells, 5)

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The story is very engrossing, coming to life before you. We follow the protagonist with great interest as he is projected far into the future (through a coma), a future uncanningly like our own. The reader will be able to identify with much of the 20th and 21st century reality around them, but with strange twists. Flight (unknown in Well's day) is commonplace, but planes with moving wings. It is a future predicated around the sleeper, a dystopia gone awry, ruled in the sleeper's name in order to oppress the masses in a socialist nightmare. Wells further convincingly demonstrates "the principle of violent mimicry" (see Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers)- we become that which we hate. As throughout history, when the oppressed or powerless obtain freedom and power, they become like their oppressors.

However, unless you're a scholar, I wouldn't recommend this edition. Although greatly annotated by Stover, the annotations detract from the text. Wells makes numerous references that are more understandable if one is British or lived in the 1800's, and when a footnote is next to one of these references, one naturally looks down below to better understand the context. But Stover repeatedly gives away key aspects of the storyline and the ending, thereby detracting from the reading of the text.

In addition, some of the footnotes are incorrect. For instance, when at one point the protagonist, Graham, is referenced as "one man who must die for the nation", Stover comments this is an obvious attempt to compare Graham to Jesus in a fictitious quote from the gospel. But, says Stover, this quote is nowhere in the four synoptic Gospels. The problem is that there are only three synoptic Gospels- synoptic referring to the first three Gospels- and the quote if found in the non-synoptic Gospel of John- 11.50.

I believe I have a copy of this book. Found it mixed up with some others at a country party store. Found it hard to read. Still I loved it. I have kept it with me since I was a teen. Paid 75 cents for it.