HG Wells’s Forgotten Fiction

Written in 1908, serialised that year and published in hardback in 1909, Tono-Bungay takes its bizarre title from the name of a quack medicine developed by the uncle of the novel’s hero, George Ponderevo. Throughout the marriage he had numerous affairs, some of which produced children; thanks to the success of his early science fiction, which was deemed highly original and quickly built up an enormous following, Wells soon made enough money to finance his irregular lifestyle. Uncle Ponderevo, to illustrate Wells’s point about the inevitable corrupting influence of capitalism, is no such philanthropist: he is determined to make money by whatever means, including swindling.

Source: www.newstatesman.com