WELLS, H.G.

The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind.

First Edition of H.G. Wells' The World Set Free; From the library of Christopher Priest

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914.

$600.00

In Stock Item Number: RRB-149400

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First edition of Wells’ prophetic novel predicting the arrival of atomic weaponry. Octavo, original publisher's blue cloth with titles stamped in gilt and botanical detailing stamped in black. From the collection of British science fiction author Christopher Priest. Priest’s most famous works include The Inverted World (1974), the interconnected “Dream Archipelago” series, and The Prestige (1995), which was adapted into the 2006 Academy Award nominee film of the same name by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, and Michael Caine. In very good condition.

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.