The Correspondence of H.G. Wells. [ 4 vols, complete set; Vol 1. 1878-1900; Vol 2. 1901-1913; Vol 3. 1913-1930; Vol 4. 1930-1946]

Pickering & Chatto, London, first edition, 1998. 4 vols, cloth, 8vo, 25 cm,. liii, 458 + vii, 574 + vii, 563 + vii, 629 pp, a few ills. From the publisher's description: "The first major scholarly collection of the correspondence of H G Wells, one of the most prolific and significant writers of the twentieth century. The collection draws on over 50 archives and libraries throughout the world, many of them newly discovered, including the recently deposited papers of Wells's daughter by Amber Reeves. The edition contains 2,800 letters, fewer than 100 of which have previously been published. Letters currently available in other scholarly editions (such as those to George Bernard Shaw and Arnold Bennett) have been deliberately excluded, except where their inclusion seemed essential. A few of the letters are business letters to publishers, agents and secretaries, but the majority are much more personal. Wells's private correspondence extends from letters to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and A J Balfour to persons such as 'Mark Benney', who wrote novels based on his life in the slums and his time in prison. There is rich correspondence too with his many female friends and lovers, among them Rebecca West, Eileen Power, Gertrude Stein, Marie Stopes, Lillah MacCarthy and Dorothy Richardson. ... Some of his most powerful letters on the controversies of free love, socialism, birth control, the Fabian Society, and the nature of the curriculum of the new London University in the 1890s are included. Interspersed chronologically is a small selection of about 40 letters to Wells, where letters from him are not extant. Among these are letters from Ray Lankester, Joseph Conrad, C G Jung, Trotsky, Hedy Gatternigg (the woman who attempted suicide in Wells's flat) and J C Smuts. Near Fine.