Information
In 1909 at the height of an already well established literary career, H.G. Wells published ‘Tono-Bungay’ which he considered to be ‘the finest and most finished novel’ that he had ever written. He had first become known for his science fiction novels such as ‘War of the Worlds’ (1898) and then turned more towards novels which reflected his interest in social realism, such as ‘Kipps’ (1905). The early years of his own life were marked by poverty, poorly paid toil and an awareness of the rigid nature of the class system. These experiences are reflected in many of his books. In ‘Tono-Bungay’ the narrator recounts how, as a young boy, he is sent away in disgrace from Bladesover, the great country house where his mother is a housekeeper (as Wells’s own mother was) for fighting with the son of the house. He goes to stay with his married cousin and family, who live ‘just off that miserable narrow mean high road that threads those exquisite beads Rochester and Chatham’, in impoverished, squalid circumstances and whose hopeless existence is only varied by the kind of cheerless religiosity which (as did Wells) he despises. It is when brought face to face with the crushing nature of his uncle’s environment that he recognises it as the complete antithesis of all that Bladesover represents, and realises just how English society is structured.
Quotations
I have never revisited Chatham; the impression it has left on me is one of squalid compression, unlit by any gleam of maturer charity. All its effects arranged themselves as antithetical to the Bladesover effects. They confirmed and intensified all that Bladesover suggested. Bladesover declared itself to be the land, to be essentially England; I have already told how its airy spaciousness, its wide dignity, seemed to thrust village, church and vicarage into corners, into a secondary and conditional significance. Here one gathered the corollary of all that. Since the whole wide county of Kent was made up of contiguous Bladesovers and for the gentlefolk, the surplus of population, all who were not good tenants nor good labourers, Church of England, submissive and respectful, were necessarily thrust out of sight, to fester as they might in this place that had the colours and even the smells of a well-packed dustbin, They should be grateful even for that; that, one felt, was the theory of it all.
Place | Extract |
| Chatham | In ‘Tono-Bungay’ the narrator recounts how, as a young boy, he is sent away in disgrace from Bladesover, the great country house where his mother is a housekeeper (as Wells’s own mother was) for fighting with the son of the house... |
