The History of Mr. Polly is a 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells. The protagonist of The History of Mr. Polly is an antihero inspired by the early experiences of H.G. Wells in the drapery trade: Alfred Polly, born circa 1870, a quiet, timid and direction-less young man living in Edwardian England, who despite his own bumbling achieves a sort of contented serenity with little help from those around him. Mr. Polly's most striking characteristic is his "innate sense of epithet," which leads him to coin hilarious expressions like "dejected angelosity" for the ornaments of Canterbury Cathedral and... "the Shoveacious Cult" for "sunny young men of an abounding and elbowing energy." Alfred Polly lives in an imaginary town of Fishbourne in Kent . The novel begins in medias res by presenting a miserable Mr. Polly: "He hated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop and his wife and his neighbours -- every blessed neighbour -- and with indescribable bitterness he hated himself." The rest of the The History of Mr.
more
| Author: | H. G. Wells |
| Genre: | Comedy, Fiction, Travel, Reference, Historical fiction, Speculative fiction, Comic novel |
| Number of editions: | 17 |