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THE SLEEPER AWAKES
A Revised Edition of "When the Sleeper Wakes"
H.G. WELLS
1899
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
_When the Sleeper Wakes_, whose title I have now altered to _The SleeperAwakes_, was first published as a book in 1899 after a serial appearancein the _Graphic_ and one or two American and colonial periodicals. It isone of the most ambitious and least satisfactory of my books, and I havetaken the opportunity afforded by this reprinting to make a number ofexcisions and alterations. Like most of my earlier work, it was writtenunder considerable pressure; there are marks of haste not only in thewriting of the latter part, but in the very construction of the story.Except for certain streaks of a slovenliness which seems to be an almostunavoidable defect in me, there is little to be ashamed of in the writingof the opening portion; but it will be fairly manifest to the critic thatinstead of being put aside and thought over through a leisurelyinterlude, the ill-conceived latter part was pushed to its end. I was atthat time overworked, and badly in need of a holiday. In addition tovarious necessary journalistic tasks, I had in hand another book, _Loveand Mr. Lewisham_, which had taken a very much stronger hold upon myaffections than this present story. My circumstances demanded that one orother should be finished before I took any rest, and so I wound up theSleeper sufficiently to make it a marketable work, hoping to be able torevise it before the book printers at any rate got hold of it. Butfortune was against me. I came back to England from Italy only to falldangerously ill, and I still remember the impotent rage and strain of myattempt to put some sort of finish to my story of Mr. Lewisham, with mytemperature at a hundred and two. I couldn't endure the thought ofleaving that book a fragment. I did afterwards contrive to save it fromthe consequences of that febrile spurt--_Love and Mr. Lewisham_ is indeedone of my most carefully balanced books--but the Sleeper escaped me.
It is twelve years now since the Sleeper was written, and that young manof thirty-one is already too remote for me to attempt any very drasticreconstruction of his work. I have played now merely the part of aneditorial elder brother: cut out relentlessly a number of long tiresomepassages that showed all too plainly the fagged, toiling brain, the heavysluggish _driven_ pen, and straightened out certain indecisions at theend. Except for that, I have done no more than hack here and there atclumsy phrases and repetitions. The worst thing in the earlier version,and the thing that rankled most in my mind, was the treatment of therelations of Helen Wotton and Graham. Haste in art is almost alwaysvulgarisation, and I slipped into the obvious vulgarity of making whatthe newspaper syndicates call a "love interest" out of Helen. There waseven a clumsy intimation that instead of going up in the flying-machineto fight, Graham might have given in to Ostrog, and married Helen. I havenow removed the suggestion of these uncanny connubialities. Not theslightest intimation of any sexual interest could in truth have arisenbetween these two. They loved and kissed one another, but as a girl andher heroic grandfather might love, and in a crisis kiss. I have found itpossible, without any very serious disarrangement, to clear all thatobjectionable stuff out of the story, and so a little ease my conscienceon the score of this ungainly lapse. I have also, with a few strokes ofthe pen, eliminated certain dishonest and regrettable suggestions thatthe People beat Ostrog. My Graham dies, as all his kind must die, with nocertainty of either victory or defeat.
Who will win--Ostrog or the People? A thousand years hence that willstill be just the open question we leave to-day.
H.G. WELLS.