Wells, Herbert George. [Kipps: a monograph.] [†]$1.50. Scribner.
“An uneducated, awkward, and uncultivated clerk in a London draper’s establishment suddenly has a large fortune left him, attempts to get into high society, is made use of and swindled right and left, but finally has the courage to break away, to marry the girl of his choice, even though she be a servant girl, and to live his own life. In the end fortune smiles on him a second time, but now in moderation, and he is left a happy, contented husband and father; and, by a twist of Mr. Wells’ whimsical fancy, is made the proprietor of a bookshop which he manages on the theory that ‘one book is about as good as another.’”—Outlook.
“The book, in fact, has a purpose, but that purpose is not allowed to interfere with its vivacity; and ‘Kipps’ is, indeed, the most amusing book and at the same time the tenderest book that Mr. Wells has ever written.”
| + + | Acad. 68: 1129. O. 28, ‘05. 900w. |
[*] “He has set aside the speculations of scientific imagination, and deals with warm human life to-day. This is the work which was designed for him in the end, and we cannot doubt that he will continue to devote himself to it.”
| + | Ath. 1905, 2: 681. N. 18. 650w. |
“Deals with his subject in a strong, broad manner, intensified by his understanding of such detail of life as the minor incidents of retail trade.”
| + | Critic. 47: 478. N. ‘05. 50w. | |
| + | Ind. 59: 1113. N. 9, ‘05. 220w. |
“The merit of the novel, however, is not in the story, but in the observation. He never, for a single page, fails to be amusing.”
| + + — | Lond. Times. 4: 358. O. 27, ‘05. 780w. |