The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sleeper Awakes, by H.G. Wells

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Sleeper Awakes
A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes

Author: H.G. Wells

Release Date: April 26, 2004 [EBook #12163]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLEEPER AWAKES ***

Produced by Paul Murray, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

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 Sleeper
Awakes_, was first published as a book in 1899 after a serial appearance
in the _Graphic_ and one or two American and colonial periodicals. It is
one of the most ambitious and least satisfactory of my books, and I have
taken the opportunity afforded by this reprinting to make a number of
excisions and alterations. Like most of my earlier work, it was written
under considerable pressure; there are marks of haste not only in the
writing of the latter part, but in the very construction of the story.
Except for certain streaks of a slovenliness which seems to be an almost
unavoidable defect in me, there is little to be ashamed of in the writing
of the opening portion; but it will be fairly manifest to the critic that
instead of being put aside and thought over through a leisurely
interlude, the ill-conceived latter part was pushed to its end. I was at
that time overworked, and badly in need of a holiday. In addition to
various necessary journalistic tasks, I had in hand another book, _Love
and Mr. Lewisham_, which had taken a very much stronger hold upon my
affections than this present story. My circumstances demanded that one or
other should be finished before I took any rest, and so I wound up the
Sleeper sufficiently to make it a marketable work, hoping to be able to
revise it before the book printers at any rate got hold of it. But
fortune was against me. I came back to England from Italy only to fall
dangerously ill, and I still remember the impo