The Sleeper Awakes

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title The Sleeper Awakes
Authors and Contributors      By (author) H. G. Wells
Introduction by Patrick Parrinder
Notes by Andy Sawyer
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:288
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
Category/GenreScience fiction
ISBN/Barcode 9780141441061
ClassificationsDewey:823.912
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publication Date 31 March 2005
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his trance he is horrified to discover that the money accumulated in his name is being used to maintain a hierarchal society in which most are poor, and more than a third of all people are enslaved. Oppressed and uneducated, the masses cling desperately to one dream that the sleeper will awake, and lead them all to freedom.

Author Biography

H.G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist, who published more than a hundred books, including novels, histories, essays and programmes for world regeneration. Wells's prophetic imagination was first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction, but later he became an apostle of socialism, science and progress. His controversial views on sexual equality and the shape of a truly developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today. He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'. Patrick Parrinder has written on H.G. Wells, science fiction, James Joyce and the history of the English novel. Since 1986 he has been Professor of English at the University of Reading. Andy Sawyer is a Librarian at the University of Sheffield with a particular interest in science fiction.