The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

by H.G. Wells

Book Overview

The protagonist of The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman is Lady Harman, n e Ellen Sawbridge. The moral, emotional, and intellectual conflicts that this tall, sensitive, graceful woman confronts arise in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1977603858
• ISBN13: 9781977603852
• Release Date: September 2017
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An overlooked comedy by a great writer

This is my absolute favorite of all amongst Wells' social novels. Yes, he's best known for his science fiction now, but he had a genuinely brilliant eye for social satire. In my opinion, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman is his funniest, despite some indirect hints of anti-Semitism in his sometimes stereotypical portrait of Sir Issac himself. He is not the main character, however: his wife Ellen is, as she gropes her way from a child-bride's terrified dependency upon her husband's will to finding a life and work of her own, with the help of a bumblingly romantic writer of domestic comedies. (Unlike several of Wells' other novels of women's intellectual growth, Ellen does not end up falling madly in love with a scientifically-minded iconoclast bearing a suspicious resemblance to Wells, thank goodness.) Occasionally, the writer character gets a trifle preachy, but who could resist a protagonist who suddenly declares herself a suffragette and smashes the nearest shop window because the time in jail means a holiday from her husband? Well worth the read, in short.