9 h 38 minAudiobook12 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 9 h 38 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your whole life were a troubling dream in a world that has learned to live better?
In H. G. Wells’s The Dream, Sarnac lives in a calm future, where people are healthy, educated, and free from fear of war and want. Then he dreams an entire life as Harry Mortimer Smith, an ordinary Englishman caught in the crowded, quarrelsome world of the early twentieth century.
Through Harry’s life, Wells explores what a society throws away: human strength, chances to learn, and the hope of living without constant conflict. Nations pull against one another. Schools teach little that matters. Set beside Sarnac’s ordered world, this muddle raises a question: must people always live this way?
What you’ll discover
- Two worlds in contrast Move between a peaceful future and a past crowded with waste and quarrels.
- An ordinary life reconsidered Follow Harry Mortimer Smith through a world whose habits look different from Sarnac’s distance.
- The cost of waste Consider how poor schooling and divided nations drain the strength of everyday lives.
- Wells the social thinker Explore his concern for education, shared knowledge, and a world no longer pulling apart.
- Space to reflect Let one man’s recollection lead you toward questions about humanity’s choices and future.
Who will love it
Readers who like a frame story told by firelight, a vivid picture of everyday life in old England, and a love story that turns on forgiveness. Fans of Wells who enjoy his ideas set inside human drama will feel at home.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A holiday ends in a strange waking
- A shopkeeper's son in Cherry Gardens
- Churches, sermons and a stolen supper
- The tornado of misfortunes
- Pimlico, a boarding house and a hunger to learn
- Fanny discovers herself, and Harry finds his work
- War, Hetty and a marriage that breaks
- What the story is about: confusion, fear and mercy
- How the dream is told
Who’s who
- SarnacA tired scientist of the future who wakes from sleep sure that he once lived as Harry Mortimer Smith, and who tells that life aloud.
- SunraySarnac's loving partner, a maker of stories about the past, who watches over his sleep and wants to hear every detail.
- Harry Mortimer SmithA greengrocer's son who teaches himself Latin and science, rises in publishing, and wants love and learning in a world that fears both.
- FannyHarry's lovely, clever sister, who runs away to find knowledge and love and stays his truest friend.
- Hetty MarcusA dark-eyed, quick-witted farmer's daughter whom Harry marries in wartime, and whose one mistake he is slow to forgive.
- Matilda GoodThe large, shrewd keeper of a Pimlico lodging house who takes in the Smith family and sees much more than she says.
- Milly KimptonA fair, steady woman from the counting house who becomes Harry's second wife and wants a sound, respectable home.
- Richard NewberryThe warm, busy owner of Crane and Newberry, who gives Harry his chance and keeps his own secret.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 9 h 38 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 12 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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25 languages, side by side
Read and hear Der Traum in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Der Traum
by H. G. Wells · 1924
Sarnac wakes from a nap in the mountains convinced he is Harry Mortimer Smith, a London publisher with two wives.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Dream is a novel by H. G.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A holiday ends in a strange waking
Sarnac has spent almost a year on delicate research into the nerve cells of the body, and he is tired. He and Sunray set out to wander among lakes and mountains. They sail and swim, and they meet a very old man who makes clay figures and a musician who plays a piece by Chopin called the Revolutionary Etude. The music opens something dark in Sarnac that his people have long kept shut.
Four more travellers join them. Radiant and Starlight are brother and sister who train animals, and Willow and Firefly are electricians. Together the six visit excavated ruins from two thousand years earlier. A town and a railway tunnel lie there, where refugees and soldiers met their end long ago. The sight is almost too vivid, and Sarnac cuts his hand on a broken carriage window.
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What is The Dream by H. G. Wells about?
A scientist of the future named Sarnac wakes from a nap sure he once lived as Harry Mortimer Smith in early twentieth-century England. He tells that whole life to friends: family, schooling, London, publishing, war, love and loss.
Who is Sarnac and who is Harry Mortimer Smith?
Sarnac lives in a free, gentle future. Harry Mortimer Smith is the man he believes he was two thousand years earlier, a greengrocer's son from southern England who becomes a magazine editor in London.
Is The Dream a true story?
No. It is a novel by H. G. Wells, published in the early 1920s. The English scenes draw on the world Wells knew, and the future frame lets him compare that world with one he hoped for.
The author
H. G. Wells
1866–1946 · English science fiction novelist
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was an English writer born in Bromley, Kent. He wrote novels, short stories and nonfiction. His novels included The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). He died in London.
More by H. G. Wells
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