Who would have thought that the man best known for The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds had written such a thing. It seems that this dates from his "middle period" and is less science fiction and more socio-political. This work does address the women's suffrage movement, but I would disagree with the biographer who implies that the movement is central to this book. Ann Veronica's fling with the suffragettes was neither long nor notable and Wells' handling of the activists was condescending at best. In fact, I would consider his treatment of the movement and the women involved in it as contemptuous. Ann Veronica finds the movement unsatisfying and moves on.
In the course of her adventures, Ann Veronica runs away to London to look for work, borrows from an neighbor and acquaintance of her father who takes that as her agreement to be his mistress, contracts an engagement to a man who has been pursuing her in hopes of settling her debt, joins the suffragettes and spends a month in jail to have a roof over her head, and finally runs away with a married man.
In the end, Wells takes the girl he created with the instinct for rebellion and turns her into a totally conventional housewife. One does have to get past the fact that she ran away to live in sin with the man while he was married to another woman, who refused to live with him because he had cheated on her, but wouldn't divorce him either. (Remember the period!) It was not clear to me what happened to the wife. Perhaps after a few years she relented or died. Still, it was a little disturbing to find that the penultimate scene has them living in conventional domesticity, having invited her father and maiden aunt to dinner to inform them of her pregnancy.
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