It is now nearly fifteen years since "Anticipations" was written, and it is with a certain detachment and curiosity that I have read it over again to consider very seriously whether the issue of a fresh edition is justifiable. I have looked at the book only very occasionally since its first publication, I have never read it through since I passed the proofs for press until the present occasion, and on the whole I am surprised to find how few are the things I would change were I to rewrite it at the present time. It is a better book than I have been in the habit of thinking it was, and whatever the value of both of them to the world at large may be, the H. G. Wells of thirty-three has little to be ashamed of in presenting his book to the criticisms of the H. G. Wells of forty-eight. There are places, as I will presently indicate, which the latter, with some advantages of travel and experience, may be inclined to consider thin; there are ignorances and there are several rash and harsh generalisations; but an occasional trick of harshness and moments of leaping ignorance are in the blood of H. G. Wells; everybody who reads him has to stand that—he has to stand it himself more than any one—and forty-eight has, I fear, but small reason on that score for a superior attitude to thirty-three. It is like a lisp or an ugly voice. On the whole, and that is the astonishing thing, the book
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