| ▲ | drcwpl 7 hours ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Wells was way above James in quality, prolific output and wide ranging genres, from sci-fi to history, fiction and social reform - his life story is worth studying carefully. His work even led towards the atomic bomb and statute of human rights. Dream boldly and build responsibly - https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/hg-wells-dream-boldly-... | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | bryanrasmussen 40 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The general consensus of the literary establishment at least up to 20 years ago is that James was far greater than Wells, I believe that is still the accepted viewpoint, although some things I have heard and seen recently make me think that Wells may be getting re-evaluated, but still not above James I believe. That said I happen to have a great deal of literary contempt for James and think he should be completely thrown away as a worthless piece of junk - which reasons I will not expound on here. Whereas I only ever found Wells sort of boring. OK I found James boring too, but also a conceited punk of considerably lower quality than his own opinion and the critical establishment has given for an ability to write complicated sentences about inessential things (that was not expounding on my reasons, that was just a little snide aside) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | devindotcom 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
I don't know that I would agree he is above James in "quality." Wells was of course great, but he also put out a lot of trash. James may have been the more limited of the two in tone, topic, and social politics, but his work is of a different caliber in terms of prose, complexity, and coherence. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | GeoAtreides 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
> Wells was way above James in quality In all of my twelve years on this godforsaken site, i had never had the displeasure of reading something more wrong; it actually transcends being wrong and, as Pauli would put it, it's not even wrong. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | WillAdams 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
In particular, his _Outline of History_ is well worth reading for its examination of how the commons (in terms of common pastural areas and so forth shared by a community) were eroded away by the newfangled notion of individual property. It's on Project Gutenberge, and the Librivox recording may be workable depending on your tolerance for voices and background noise. Though it's worth noting that the authorship of that text is challenged/potentially problematic --- look up Florence Deeks' copyright challenge. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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