Alfred Polly was an only child who was sent to school by 'his parents' (although his mother died three years before), then apprenticed in a department store when significantly lacking in mathematical ability but extraordinarily well read with a massive imagination; a superb salesman with an ability to charm others with his nonsensical mispronunciations of words. He goes through a number of jobs before a legacy from his father enables him to set up shop in a place called either Foxbourne or (later) Fishbourne. He marries at the same time and then spends 15 years regretting a loveless marriage and slowly going bankrupt (in common with almost all the other shop-keepers). So he sets his shop on fire for the insurance and becomes a hero in the ensuing blaze; then he abandons his wife and ends up working at a country inn.
It is an amusing little story enlivened by acerbic wit:
"Outside the regions devastated by the school curriculum he was still intensely curious." (p15)
"On the whole he preferred business to school: the hours were longer but the tension was not nearly so great." (p17)
Any word play: "if, indeed, one may speak of a recent meal as a circumstance - seeing that Mr Polly was circum" (p9)
June 2011; 234 pages
Other novels by H G Wells reviewed in this blog include:
- The War of the Worlds
- The Time Machine
- Tono-Bungay
- Love and Mr Lewisham
- The History of Mr Polly
- Kipps
- The First Men in the Moon
Biographies of H G Wells reviewed in this blog:
- H G Wells by Lovat Dickson
- H G: The History of Mr Wells by Michael Foot
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