Ann Veronica (Penguin Classics)
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Product Description
Product Description
Twenty-one, passionate and headstrong, Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to live her own life. When her father forbids her from attending a fashionable Ball, she decides she has no choice but to leave her family home and make a fresh start in London. There, she finds a world of intellectuals, socialists, and suffragettes - a place where, as a student in Biology at Imperial College, she can be truly free. But when she meets the brilliant Capes, a married academic, and quickly falls in love, she soon finds that freedom comes at a price.
About the Author
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'.
Margaret Drabble is the author of fiction and non-ficton and she has edited the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She is a CBE and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Sita A. Schütt was until recently Assýstant Professor in the English Language and Literature at Bilkent University, Ankara.She has published articles on French and English detective fiction and Ford Madox Ford. She is currently writing a novel.
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First Sentence
One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to have things out with her father that very evening. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to have things out with her father that very evening. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Few writers have penned works which vary so much from one another, than H.G. Wells. In 'Ann Veronica', Wells tackles the issue of female independence and emancipation, through Ann Veronica Stanley, a promising Biology student in her early '20s, who desires a move away from the home of her overbearing father, and apparently traditional aunt. The novel deals with the issue of female identity and self-exploration in the early 20th century in decent detail, and in Ann Veronica, Wells has created a believable, likeable and fittingly flawed heroine. Also to the novel's credit is Wells' style, which is often witty, self-reflexive, and sets itself up somewhat as a gentle mockery towards the narration of some rather stodgier and more self-righteous Victorian texts.
'Ann Veronica' is certainly not without its problems, though. Wells appears to struggle at times with what to do with the appealing heroine he has created, and through her, seems to both criticise and mock Ann Veronica's father's paternal instincts, before creating an ending in which it is implied she needs a man to care for her; all the while both seeming to support and to denigrate the suffragette movement, the latter done often through the weak caricature that is the character of Miss Miniver. Similarly, whilst Wells shows a knowing wit on certain issues in the novel, characters like Ann Veronica's father Peter, amongst others; come across rather too much as Dickensian caricatures; a trait which sits uneasily with this largely progressive novel. All in all, 'Ann Veronica' is an interesting and sometimes insightful, but also flawed work; which seems to slip between the artful and the clumsy - but as always with Wells, you can't fault him for trying his hand at another genre of novel.
'Ann Veronica' is certainly not without its problems, though. Wells appears to struggle at times with what to do with the appealing heroine he has created, and through her, seems to both criticise and mock Ann Veronica's father's paternal instincts, before creating an ending in which it is implied she needs a man to care for her; all the while both seeming to support and to denigrate the suffragette movement, the latter done often through the weak caricature that is the character of Miss Miniver. Similarly, whilst Wells shows a knowing wit on certain issues in the novel, characters like Ann Veronica's father Peter, amongst others; come across rather too much as Dickensian caricatures; a trait which sits uneasily with this largely progressive novel. All in all, 'Ann Veronica' is an interesting and sometimes insightful, but also flawed work; which seems to slip between the artful and the clumsy - but as always with Wells, you can't fault him for trying his hand at another genre of novel.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If you only know H.G. Wells from The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds and so on, this brilliant novel may come as something of a shock. First published in 1909, it focuses on feminist issues from the point of view of a young woman entering adulthood and enduring prejudice about her place in the world. She has to fend off unwelcome advances from men who want to enslave her, and evade a different sort of imprisonment from an over-protective family. It's also a fascinating novel for what it says about the times, and its insights into contemporary social and scientific thought.
One last thing: Ann Veronica is a great (if unconventional) love story. The last quarter of the book is incredibly touching and romantic. Not bad for a 'mere' sci-fi writer...
One last thing: Ann Veronica is a great (if unconventional) love story. The last quarter of the book is incredibly touching and romantic. Not bad for a 'mere' sci-fi writer...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
"What's the matter with kids today?"
Ann Veronica "Vee" asks the question "why can't a woman be like a man" and sets out to find out why. She discovers all sorts of men, some stuffy and some devious. She may one day stumble over the perfect man. She tries to be independent and is thwarted at every turn; that is until she realizes there are better things to do than just compete.
We get to grow with Vee and go through several long dissertations, Ayn Rand style, over politics freedom, love, equality, and whatnot. All the talk loses its way and with dumb luck returns to the story. We are treated to a travelogue and scratch ourselves with a long talk about the prison dingies. Just as it, starts to get interest the story stops dead in the middle of a thought.
The story is ok and some of the subjects brought up are still relevant today. However, if you look a little closer the story as with much fiction is just a venue to express H.G's concepts of free love.
Ann Veronica "Vee" asks the question "why can't a woman be like a man" and sets out to find out why. She discovers all sorts of men, some stuffy and some devious. She may one day stumble over the perfect man. She tries to be independent and is thwarted at every turn; that is until she realizes there are better things to do than just compete.
We get to grow with Vee and go through several long dissertations, Ayn Rand style, over politics freedom, love, equality, and whatnot. All the talk loses its way and with dumb luck returns to the story. We are treated to a travelogue and scratch ourselves with a long talk about the prison dingies. Just as it, starts to get interest the story stops dead in the middle of a thought.
The story is ok and some of the subjects brought up are still relevant today. However, if you look a little closer the story as with much fiction is just a venue to express H.G's concepts of free love.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
"Why can't they be like we were perfect in every way?"
"What's the matter with kids today?"
Ann Veronica "Vee" asks the question "why can't a woman be like a man" and sets out to find out why. Read more
Ann Veronica "Vee" asks the question "why can't a woman be like a man" and sets out to find out why. Read more
Published on 4 April 2010 by bernie
Unusual for Wells, but a bit hit and miss
An unusual H G Wells novel, being written from the point of view of a woman. The first two thirds of the story are about Ann Veronica's struggle to assert her independence,... Read more
Published on 17 May 2009 by John Hopper
very thoughtful very insightful
Sometimes an author's most famous novels aren't necessarily his best. H G Well's is known for "The War of the Worlds" and "The Invisible Man". Read more
Published on 17 May 2009 by Mr. John Conrad Mullen
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