The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind.

WELLS, H.G. [George Bernard Shaw].

$9,500.00

Item Number: 109903

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914.

First edition, first issue of Wells’ prophetic novel predicting the arrival of atomic weaponry with the publisher listed as Macmillan and Co. Limited (as opposed to Ltd.), 8 pages of advertisements at rear, and no statement of printing to the copyright page. Octavo, original cloth stamped in blind with gilt titles to the spine and front panel, top edge gilt. Association copy, inscribed by H.G. Wells to George Bernard Shaw, “G.B.S. from H.G.” Like Wells, George Bernard Shaw used writing fiction as a vehicle to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. Wells and Shaw connected when Wells joined the gradualist Fabian society in 1903. Shaw had, since the mid 1880s, been a dedicated member and advocated its message of moderation in the face of a debate regarding the option to embrace anarchism. In the years following the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership and saw this in the form of Wells. Wells, however, held views at odds with the party’s “Old Gang” led by Shaw, particularly with proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party, and soon resigned from the Society. Following Wells’ death in 1946, Shaw wrote his obituary for The New Statesman, stating, “To Fabian socialist doctrine he could add little; for he was born ten years too late to be in at its birth pangs. Finding himself only a fifth wheel in the Fabian coach he cleared out; but not before he had exposed very effectively the obsolescence and absurdity of our old parish and county divisions as boundaries of local government areas.” Shaw spoke highly of Wells and his genius, asserting that Wells “…foresaw the European war, the tank, the plane and the atomic bomb; and he may be said to have created the ideal home and been the father of the prefabricated house.” In near fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. An exceptional association.

Based on Wells' pre-WWII prediction of a more destructive and uncontrollable sort of weapon than the world had yet seen, The World Set Free first appeared in serialized form with the title A Prophetic Trilogy. A frequent theme of Wells's work, as in his 1901 nonfiction book Anticipations, was the history of humans' mastery of power and energy through technological advance, seen as a determinant of human progress. Wells's knowledge of atomic physics came from reading William Ramsay, Ernest Rutherford, and Frederick Soddy; the last discovered the disintegration of uranium. Soddy's book Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt praises The World Set Free. Wells's novel may even have influenced the development of nuclear weapons, as the physicist Leó Szilárd read the book in 1932, the same year the neutron was discovered. In 1933 Szilárd conceived the idea of neutron chain reaction, and filed for patents on it in 1934.