Audiobook · read by volunteers
Wheels of Chance
H. G. Wells (1866–1946)
Read by Nick Gallant, Patti Cunningham, MaryAnn, Neeru Iyer, valli, Tom Watts · 15 chapters · 6 h 00
About the book
Mr Hoopdriver is a draper's assistant, and his days are spent measuring cloth and answering to his employer. For a precious fortnight, however, he is free. He buys a bicycle, rather an old one, and sets off for the countryside of southern England, in search of fresh air and a little adventure. On the road he meets a young woman who has run away from her stepmother, a mysterious fellow traveller and a number of comic obstacles, and his small world is changed for good. H. G. Wells, better known for his scientific romances, gives us here a gentle and humorous story of the cycling craze, of class and ambition, and of an ordinary man's chance to be someone else. Fifteen sections, six hours, and a ride through the lanes of another time.
Introduction
H. G. Wells was born in 1866 and died in 1946. He is remembered above all for the scientific romances of his early career, among them The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds. But he also wrote comic novels about the lives of ordinary people, drawing on his own early experience as a draper's apprentice.
The Wheels of Chance, subtitled A Bicycling Idyll, appeared in 1896. It belongs to this less well known side of his work. In the 1890s the bicycle had become a craze, and it offered new freedom, especially to women and to clerks and shop workers who could now travel beyond their town on their day off. Wells catches the excitement of the moment and the social comedy that goes with it, and he uses the journey to explore the gap between what his hero is and what he would like to be. The novel is lightly written but not trivial. It is about class, shyness and the way a small adventure can change a life, and it has the gentle irony of the English comic tradition.
This recording was made by volunteers from the LibriVox project and is divided into fifteen sections, each grouping several of the original chapters. It runs to about six hours. Why listen now? Because the book is a pleasant surprise for readers who know Wells only as a writer of futures. It shows his warmth, his humour and his sharp eye for the details of everyday life.
Public domain
H. G. Wells died in 1946: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text