H.G. Wells's 'liberal fascism'

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 35, Issue 4, 2000, Pages

  Coupland, Philip ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33744923875     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002200940003500402     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. Action, 28 February 1936, 8
2. J[ohn] A. M[acnab], 'Things to Come', The Fascist Quarterly, 2, 2 (1936), 328-9
3. W. Warren Wagar, H.G. Wells and the World State (New Haven, CT 1961), 164-205
4. Sydney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? (no place of publication 1935)
5. Bernard Shaw, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism (Harmondsworth 1937), vol. 2, chaps 71-85
6. Gareth Griffith, Socialism and Superior Brains: The Political Thought of Bernard Shaw (London 1995), chap. 6
7. Peter Beilharz, Labour's Utopias: Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy (London 1993), chap. 3
8. R. Bassett, Essentials of Parliamentary Democracy (London 1964; first published 1935), part two;
9. G.E.G. Catlin, 'Expert State versus Free State', The Political Quarterly, 3 (1932), 539-51;
10. Raymond Postgate, How to Make a Revolution (London 1934), 194
11. Dmitri Mirsky, The Intelligentsia of Great Britain (London 1935), 74-7;
12. J.D. Bernal, The Social Function of Science (London 1939), 398;
13. 'Christopher Caudwell' [Christopher St John Sprigg], Studies in a Dying Culture (London 1938), 73-95
14. Anthony West, H.G. Wells. Aspects of a Life (London 1984)
15. David C. Smith, H.G. Wells. Desperately Mortal (Yale 1986)
16. Michael Foot, H.G.: The History of Mr Wells (London 1995)
17. Peter Kemp, H.G. Wells and the Culminating Ape (New York 1982)
18. Leon Stover, The Prophetic Soul: A Reading of H.G. Wells' Things to Come Together with His Film Treatment, Wither Mankind? and the Postproduction Script (Both Never Before Published) (Jefferson 1987)
19. John Carey, The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 (London 1992)
20. Michael Coren, The Invisible Man: The Life and Liberties of H.G. Wells (London 1994)
21. Krishan Kumar, Utopia & Anti-utopia in Modern Times (Oxford 1991), 178-219;
22. Leon Stover, 'Spade House Dialectic: Theme and Theory in "Things to Come" ', The Wellsian, 5 (1982), 23-32;
23. Stover, The Prophetic Soul, op. cit
24. H.G. Wells, 'Project of a World Society', The New Statesman and Nation, 20 August 1932;
25. H.G. Wells, After Democracy: Addresses and Papers on the Present World Situation (London 1932), 2-3, 9-11
26. H.G. Wells, The Way the World is Going (London 1928), 28;
27. H.G. Wells, The Anatomy of Frustration: A Modern Synthesis (London 1936), 187;
28. H.G. Wells, 'Grown Men do not Need Leaders' in The Common Sense of War and Peace: World Revolution or War Unending (Harmondsworth 1940), 7-12
29. Wells, What Are We To Do With Our Lives?, op. cit., 20, 113, 127;
30. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, op. cit., 746
31. Wells, After Democracy, op. cit., 31;
32. Wells, 'Project of a World Society', op. cit.;
33. H.G. Wells, The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (London 1 934; revised edn, first published 1932), 809; Wagar, op. cit
34. Wells to [Clifford] Allen, 17 December 1932, in David C. Smith (ed.), The Correspondence of H.G. Wells: Volume 3 1919-1934 (London 1998), 456
35. H.G. Wells, 'Introduction: There should be a Common Creed for all Left Parties throughout the World', 12-20 in C.E.M Joad (ed.), Manifesto: Being the Book of The Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals (London 1934), 17-18
36. Wells dismissed the readership of the Daily Herald as 'stupid'. See Wells to Joad, 14 December 1932 (Smith, op. cit., 455). In another letter he described what correspondence he had aroused by his article as 'idiotic' and commented that 'nobody else has taken notice of what I have said' (Wells to Allen, 17 December 1932, ibid., 456). On Clifford Allen's unsuccessful attempts to interest Wells in participating in a public meeting to bring together 'progressive' opinion see Arthur Marwick, Clifford Allen: The Open Conspirator (Edinburgh 1964), 125-6; Martin Gilbert, Plough My Own Furrow: The Story of Lord Allen of Hurtwood as Told through his Writings and Correspondence (London 1965), 291-3; 307-9. Wells's involvement in the Next Five Years Group which emerged from Allen's efforts in 1935 was limited to allowing his name to be included in the list of the signatories to its programme (The Next Five Years: An Essay in Political Agreement [London 1935], ix)
37. Kingsley Martin, 'Mr Wells and Sir Oswald Mosley', The New Statesman and Nation, 29 October 1932
38. Jack Coates, 'Is the Progressive League Redundant?', Plan, 12, 5 (May 1945), 2-4;
39. Plan, 11, 3 (March 1944); Wagar, op. cit., 198;
40. H.G. Wells, The Holy Terror (London 1939), 73, 82
41. H.G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come: The Ultimate Revolution (London 1936; first published 1933), 270, 312
42. Wells, The Anatomy of Frustration, op. cit., 275, my emphasis; Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, op. cit., 749
43. Michael Foot, 'In Defence of H.G. Wells', The Times Literary Supplement, 23 October 1995;
44. H.G. Wells, The Autocracy of Mr Parham (London 1930), 153
45. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, op. cit., 106
46. Kemp, op. cit., 178-80; J.B. Priestley, Margin Released: A Writer's Reminiscences and Reflections (London 1963), 164;
47. H.G. Wells, The Outlook for Homo Sapiens (London 1942), 111;
48. Wells, The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind, op. cit., 315, 326;
49. The Stalin-Wells Talk. The Verbatim Record and a Discussion by G. Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, J.M. Keynes, Ernst Toller and Others (London 1934), 8
50. Wells, The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind, op. cit., 184-5, 538
51. On Wells's antisemitism see: Bryan Cheyette, 'Beyond Rationality: H.G. Wells and the Jewish Question', The Wellsian, 14 (Summer 1991), 41-64; Kemp, op. cit., 181-3; Coren, op. cit., 211-19;
52. Wells, The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind, op. cit., 540
53. Wells, The Way the World is Going, op. cit., 28, my emphasis; Wells, The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind, op. cit., 312, 540, 584, 614
54. H.G. Wells, '42 to '44: A Contemporary Memoir upon Human Behaviour during the Crisis of the World Revolution (London 1944), 68
55. Wells. The Shape of Things to Come, op. cit., 109, 163
56. Wells apparently preferred the fascist to the nazi regime. Writing of the 'very full and well-illustrated Italian (Fascist) Encyclopaedia', Wells described it as 'one of the many evidences of the higher mental level of the Fascist as compared with the Nazi regime'. Wells also noted the 'highly disciplined Fascist Legislature, in which Fascists only may be elected'. (Wells, The Outlook for Homo Sapiens, op. cit., 276;
57. H.G. Wells, The Brothers: A Story (London 1938), 44-7; emphases in original
58. H.G. Wells, 'Wither Mankind? A Film of the Future' in Stover, The Prophetic Soul, op. cit., 137
59. Elizabeth Coxhead, 'Things to Avoid', The Left Review, 2, 6 (March 1936), 275;
60. F. McConnell, The Science Fiction of H.G. Wells (Oxford 1981), 213
61. David Mellor, 'British Art in the 1930s', 185-207 in Frank Gloversmith (ed.), Class Culture and Social Change: A New View of the 1930s (Sussex 1980), 189, 204
62. Christopher Frayling, Things to Come (London 1995), 17-18, 45-6
63. Stover, 'Spade House Dialectic', op. cit., 28, 23;
64. H.G. Wells, 'Wither Mankind?', op. cit., 157
65. Brian Ash, Who's Who in H.G. Wells (London 1979), 265-7
66. see also Norman Nicholson, H.G. Wells (London 1950), 87
67. J.R. Hammond, An H.G. Wells Companion: A Guide to the Novels, Romances and Short Stories (London 1979), 217-19; Kemp, op. cit., 193-4; Smith, op. cit., 352. See also: Wagar, op. cit., 199; John Batchelor, H.G. Wells (Cambridge 1985), 142-3;
68. Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie, The Life of H.G. Wells: The Time Traveller (London, revised edn 1987; first published 1973), 416-19; Coren, op. cit., 202. The Holy Terror is the one text which Michael Foot completely ignores in his otherwise comprehensive coverage of Wells's novels of the 1930s
69. Wells, The Holy Terror, op. cit., 268-70, 437-41
70. Oswald Mosley, The Greater Britain (London 1932), 125
71. Oswald Mosley, Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answ ered (London undated; ca.1936)
72. David Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a. Militant and Technological Nation (Basingstoke 1991)
73. ; Colin Cook, 'A Fascist Memory: Oswald Mosley and the Myth of the Airman', European Review of History, 4, 2 (1997), 147-62; Kemp, op. cit., 170-3.
74. Fascist discussion of the aircraft in Things to Come evoked a response from Nigel Tangye, 'aeronautical adviser to Mr Alexander Korda and Mr H.G. Wells' (Action, 24 October 1936)
75. Oswald Mosley, My Life (London 1968), 226;
76. Harold Nicolson, Diaries & Letters 1930-39 (no place of publication 1969), 70, 91
77. Wells, The Autocracy of Mr Parham, op. cit., 164
78. Robert Skidelsky, Oswald Mosley (London 1990; first published 1975), 199-282
79. Wells Archive, Mosley to Wells, 14 February 1931.
80. I am grateful to the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign for copies of this and the letter cited below (note 47); Eckersley, op. cit., 335; Nicolson, op. cit., 85; Nicolson to Mosley, 14 August 1931
81. quoted in Nicholas Mosley, The Rules of the Game (London 1982), 195-6
82. Vera Brittain, Diary of the Thirties 1932-1939: Chronicle of Friendship (London 1986), 92-3; entry for 5 October 1932
83. Mosley, My Life, op. cit., 226; Public Record Office, GFM 36/141, Grandi to Mussolini, 13 August 1932 (I am grateful to Stephen Dorril for this reference);
84. Wells Archive, Mosley to Wells, 31 August 1932
85. H.G. Wells, Phoenix: A Summary of the Inescapable Conditions of World Reorganisation (London 1942), 56;
86. Daily Worker. 7 December 1943; later published as a Daily Worker pamphlet: The Mosley Outrage (London 1943)
87. Martin, 'Mr Wells and Sir Oswald Mosley', op. cit., 517-18
88. John Hargrave, '"A Liberal Fascisti" ', The New Age, 25 August 1932;
89. R.H. Tawney, Equality (London 1964; first published 1931), 189