In the Days of the Comet

This is the annotated edition including the rare biographical essay by Edwin E. Slosson called "H. G. Wells - A Major Prophet Of His Time". "In the Days Mr Wells has glven us rather his ideal conception of socialism; his practical working views had been set forth in his Modern Utopia. The outline of the story is as follows: A young man is fighting out his existence, and realizes the hopelessness of doing so under modern social conditions. He is in love with a woman, with whom another man runs off, without marrying her. The jilted youth pursues with murder in his heart and just as he is about to kill the other, a comet strikes the earth and a great change takes place. The hero describes it in the following way: "It perplexed me somehow that my body felt strange to me * * * and the barley, and the beautiful woods, and the slowly developing glory of the dawn behind; all those things partook of the same unfamiliarity. I felt as though I was a thing in some very luminous painted window, as though the dawn broke through me. I felt I was part of some exquisite picture painted in light and joy."