In the Days of the Comet is a novel written by H.G. Wells. Released in 1906, it tells of a great change coming to the Earth with the coming of the titular comet.
Characters[]
- Willie Leadford
- Nettie Stuart
- Edward Verrall
- Parload
- Willie Leadford's mother
- Melmount
- Anna Reeves
- Mrs. Verrall
- Lord Redcar
- Mr. Gabbitas
- Mr. Wiggins
Publisher's Summary[]
A comet rushes toward the earth, a deadly, glowing orb that soon fills the sky and promises doom. But mankind is too busy hating, stealing, scheming, and killing to care. As luminous green trails of cosmic dust and vapor stream across the heavens, blood flows beneath: nations wage all-out war, bitter strikes erupt, and jealous lovers plot revenge and murder.
The earth slips past the comet by the narrowest of margins, but all succumb to the gases in its tail. When mankind wakes up, everyone is completely and profoundly different. An ill-fated romance between Willie Leadford and Nettie Stuart unfolds in a world buried in misery and bent on its own destruction. After the earth passes through the comet's tail, suffering, pettiness, and injustice melt away. Willie, Nettie, and everyone around them are reborn. They now see themselves and their world in a dramatically new and wonderful way.
Full Summary[]
An unnamed narrator is the author of a prologue ("The Man Who Wrote in the Tower") and an epilogue ("The Window of the Tower"). In these short texts is depicted an encounter with a "happy, active-looking" old man: the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative, writing the story of his life immediately before and after "the Change".
This narrative is divided into three "books": Book I: The Comet; Book II: The Green Vapours; and Book III: The New World.
Book I, recounts that William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank [a place where pottery is made] in Clayton," quits his job just as an economic recession caused by American dumping hits industrial Britain, and is unable to find another position. He returns to being a student and his emotional life is dominated by his attachment to Nettie Stuart, "the daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall's widow", of a village called Checkshill Towers. Converted to socialism by his friend 'Parload', Leadford blames class-based injustice for the squalid living conditions in which he and his mother live. The date of the action is unspecified.
When Nettie jilts Leadford for the son and heir of the Verrall family, Leadford buys a revolver, intending to kill them both and himself. As this plot matures, a comet with an "unprecedented band in the green" in its spectroscopy looms gradually larger in the sky, eventually becoming brighter than the Moon. Just as Leadford is about to kill his rivals, the green comet enters the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates, causing a soporific green fog.
Book II opens with Leadford's awakening, in which he is acutely aware of the beauty in the world and his attitude toward others is one of generous fellow-feeling. The same effects occur in every human being, who accordingly re-organize human society. By chance, Leadford falls in with a Cabinet minister and briefly becomes his secretary.
Book III begins with an intense discussion by Verrall, Leadford, and Nettie, about their future. Although Nettie wants to establish a ménage à trois, Leadford and Verrall reject the idea, and Leadford devotes himself to his mother until her death. Leadford marries Anna, who has been helping care for his mother, and they have a son; but soon thereafter Nettie contacts Leadford.
In the epilogue, the 72-year-old Leadford reveals that he, Nettie, Verrall, and Anna were from then on "very close, you understand, we were friends, helpers, personal lovers in a world of lovers". The author is troubled "by my uneasy sense of profound moral differences."
Worldbuilding[]
- Shortly before the Change, England and Germany gear up for war - with the first shots being fired right before the Change.
- The gas from the comet cleanses the air of the Earth - making people rational and non-aggressive. This event is dubbed "the Change".
- Some time after the Change, the pre-Change cities of the Earth are either torn down and rebuilt with new names or are reshaped and enriched in an event dubbed "The Year of Tents" or "The Year of Scaffolding". These include:
- Caerlyon and Armedon, the twin cities of lower England
- The winind summer city of the Thames, inbetween the twin cities
- Edinburgh and Dublin
- The Golden City with America (possibly San Francisco)
- City of a Thousand Spires
- The City of the Sunlight Bight
- Utah
- Martenābar, the great white winter city of the upland snows
- Orba, home to a white and slender tower
See Also[]
- Dr. Ox's Experiment by Jules Verne
- The Stone That Never Came Down by John Brunner
- When the Sleeper Wakes by H.G. Wells