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Year

1888-1944

Text

Wells, H.G. The correspondence of H.G. Wells [ID D31330].
Letter from H.G. Wells to Elizabeth Healey ; March 11, 1888.
The Buddhist nirvana is, in one of its many aspects a vague reaching towards the freedom of the imprisonment.

Letter from H.G. Wells to A.T. Simmons ; Sept. 18, 1889.
A thesis on the Influence of Evolutionary Hypothesis in Religious Thought, or the teachings of Dalai Lama, is decidedly inexpensive compared with one on a new theory of Crystal Structure or the physical condition of super heated liquids.

Letter from H.G. Wells to Fred Wells ; Dec. 31, 1896.
And to begin with myself, I have been still on the rise of fortune's wave this year, and it seems as though I must certainly go on to still larger successes and gains next for my name still spreads abroad, and people I have never ever seen, some from Chicago, one from Cape Town, and one from far up the Yung T'se Kiang in China, write and tell me they find my books pleasant.

Letter from H.G. Wells to Winston Churchill ; Nov. 19, 1901.
But of the great grandparents who me in 1800 it's highly probable they could not read & that any of them would find me & that I should find them as alien as contemporary Chinese.

Letter from H.G. Wells to Beinbridge Colby ; ca. 20 Nov. 1917.
It is here that the peculiar opportunity of America and of President Wilson comes in. America is three thousand miles from the war ; she has no lost provinces to regain, no enemy colonies to capture ; she is, in comparison with any of the Allies, except China, a dispassionate combatant. (If China can be called a combatant.)

Letter from H.G. Wells to E. Denison Ross ; 11 May 1919.
I have just seen a notice in the Observer of the work of the School of Oriental Studies. This brings me down on you. I have been working for the better part of the year at a General Outline of History which I began some time ago for the benefit of my boys and which has grown into a serious undertaking. My idea is that History is one, just as chemistry is one, a story that has to be told as a whole before it can be dealt with in parts, and I have been trying to get the main masses of History at the right proportion to one another. Naturally I have discovered my endless deficiencies in such a task. I won't bother you with any particulars about the difficultry of getting up the Ichthyasaurus, Julius Caesar, the Neanderthal Man, Buddha and General French in one pic¬ture on something like the proper scale. One thing that does come out very surely and which does — if you will let it — concern you, is the vast importance of Central Asia and China in the story and the huge blank there is in our con¬temporary historical imagination in that respect. We get — I had — the Roman Empire perpetually out of drawing. It's only now that I begin to realize that the Tarin valley is of more importance than the Jordan or the Rhine. But I find a lot of difficulty in getting any responsibly pre-digested source for such a big sketch of the whole of history as I am doing. I can't find a good general history of China at all and I have to patch together odd scraps of stuff from the Ency¬clopaedia Brittanica and elsewhere to get any story of Central Asia and the European steppes between, say, Herodotus and A.D. 1200. I wish I could tap your knowledge in the matter of half an hour's talk. I don't know if you know anything of my work but we have, I believe, a mutual acquaintance in Sir H.H. Johnstone. I shall try, if I can to get to some of these lectures of yours on Wednesday. The Observer man, with the helpfulness of the literary journalist, does not give the hour at which they begin.

Letter from H.G. Wells to the Editor, The Times ; ca. 7 Dec. 1919.
Professor Pollard's letter is a useful reminder to those who may imagine that the endowment of a special professorship or so will serve to deflect to this country any considerable number of American students who would otherwise go to Germany or elsewhere. Nothing can give this country an intellectual parity with the United States, with China, with foreign countries generally, or even with India and her own Dominions, but the possession of more professors and teachers and better professors and teachers than any other country.

Letter from H.G. Wells to Grace Gessler ; Nov. 13, 1935.
Well sent her the title page of :
Hsiung, S.I. The romance of the western chamber : a Chinese play written in the thirteenth century. (London : Methuen, 1935).

Letter from H.G. Wells to Beatrice Webb ; Jan. 5, 1940.
I am sending you a little booklet, In Search of Hot Water [Wells, H.G. Travels of a republican radical in search of hot water. (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1939)]. This sort of thing goes to China & Peru & everywhere.

Letter from H.G. Wells to Ivan Maisky ; Aug. 3, 1940.
I am without qualification a social revolutionary and as eager as you are to see the end of what you call the capitalist system. But in Western Europe we have to use different phrases and different methods from those in operation in Russia (and China ?).

Letter from H.G. Wells to the London International Assembly ; March 21, 1942.
I am very glad indeed to find the London International Assembly interested in the Sankey Declaration of Rights… It seems to me that it is necessary to have available in as many languages as possible…I am doing all I can now to get these translations made and checked… We need versions in Hindustani, Swahili, modern Chinese, Russian, Flemish, Czech and various other translations…

Letter from H.G. Wells to Mr Comario ; July 2, 1943.
A book with a shocking bad title you certainly ought to have is S.I. Hsiung The Bridge of Heaven. It is an admirable account of the modernization of China. There is nothing to equal it. It is a wholesome corrective to the missionary nonsense of Pearl Buck & puts the Christianity of the Chinese in its proper perspective.

[Letters from H.G. Wells concerning The Rights of Man].
Letter from H.G. Wells to Marc Slonimski ; July 12, 1943.
I am sending you a copy of a pamphlet, The Rights of Man… This last has been done into modern Chinese, and it is being translated and written in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Swahili, by the experts of the London School of African and Oriental Studies…
About the same letter to Fenner Brockway and the New Leader generally ; July 29, 1943.
Letter to S.S. Rostovsky ; Aug. 12, 1943.
Universal Rights of Man… It evokes response in progressive intelligences from China to Chile and it is being translated with a view to leaflet distribution in every country of the world.
Letter to Jaroslav Cisar ; Oct. 16, 1943.
Letter to Florence Lamont ; Jan 21, 1944.
Letter to S. Rostovsky ; Feb. 7, 1944.

Letter from H.G. Wells to Dr F. Langer ; Dec. 8, 1943.
And you do not seem to anticipate the repercussions of Russia, China, India, influenza and cholera, and Roman Catholic anti-Boshevism, on the distraught intelligences of Europe.

Letter from H.G. Wells to Moura Budberg ; July 18, 1944.
I am studying the Chinese situation & particularly the Soong sisters, who seem to be, all three of them, dwarfish & painted imitations of Moura, the Mongol.
[Hahn, Emily. The Soong sisters. [ID D9634] ???].

Mentioned People (1)

Wells, H.G.  (Bromley, Kent 1866-1946 London) : Schriftsteller, Historiker

Subjects

Literature : Occident : Great Britain

Documents (1)

# Year Bibliographical Data Type / Abbreviation Linked Data
1 1998 Wells, H.G. The correspondence of H.G. Wells. Ed. by David C. Smith. Vol. 1-4. (London : Pickering & Chatto, 1998). Publication / Wells3
  • Cited by: Zentralbibliothek Zürich (ZB, Organisation)
  • Person: Smith, David C.
  • Person: Wells, H.G.