12 h 47 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a fortune buys you freedom, but leaves you unsure how to live?
Arthur Kipps knows long hours, strict rules, and the narrow prospects of a draper’s assistant in Folkestone. Then an unexpected inheritance lets him leave the shop and enter a world he barely understands. In H. G. Wells’s comic novel, money changes his position almost overnight, but confidence proves harder to acquire.
At a woodcarving class, Kipps meets Helen Walshingham, whose education and assured manners impress him. As he moves toward her circle, becoming a gentleman begins to feel like another apprenticeship. Ann Pornick, his childhood companion, offers a life with less performance. Between social ambition and familiar affection, Kipps must ask what rising in the world really means.
What you’ll discover
- A fortune, unfamiliar rules Follow Kipps into company where having money does not mean knowing how to belong.
- The work behind respectability Discover how lessons in manners turn the promise of independence into fresh demands.
- Two different kinds of belonging Meet Helen and Ann, whose contrasting worlds bring Kipps’s divided loyalties into focus.
- Comedy close to home Find affectionate humour in the awkward gap between how Kipps feels and how he should behave.
- A searching look at class Consider how upbringing shapes judgment, even when an inheritance changes nearly everything else.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like gentle comedy about class and manners, vivid English seaside towns, talkative eccentrics, and heroes who stumble forward with their hearts in the right place.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A boy in a toy shop
- First love and a split sixpence
- Shalford's Emporium
- The woodcarving class and Miss Walshingham
- Chitterlow and the key of the street
- A scrap of newspaper
- A fortune and a banjo
- Mr. Coote and the lessons of Society
- What the story is really about
- How Wells tells it
Who’s who
- Arthur KippsA shy draper's apprentice raised in a toy shop, who longs to be a gentleman and has no idea how to become one.
- Ann PornickA bright, plain-spoken girl from next door whom Kipps loved as a boy, now a servant who keeps her half of a split sixpence.
- Sid PornickKipps's boyhood friend and the son of the neighbouring haberdasher, who grows into a socialist and a maker of bicycles.
- Harry ChitterlowA booming, red-haired actor and playwright who knocks Kipps over with a bicycle and sweeps him into a life of schemes.
- Helen WalshinghamA clever, ambitious woodcarving teacher who wants more from life than a small seaside town can give her.
- Chester CooteA pompous house agent and busy organiser who sets himself up as Kipps's guide to gentlemanly life.
- Mr. ShalfordThe draper who runs the Folkestone Emporium, devoted to his System, to saving every penny and to fines.
- MastermanA sick, brilliant socialist lodger who tells Kipps that the whole social ladder leads nowhere.
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
- 12 h 47 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 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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Kipps: Die Geschichte einer einfachen Seele
by H. G. Wells · 1905
A draper's apprentice with a torn trouser leg meets a madcap playwright, and a scrap of newspaper changes his life.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Kipps is a comic novel by H. G.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A boy in a toy shop
The story opens in New Romney, where young Kipps lives with his aunt and uncle in a cramped shop that sells toys, books, china and a little of everything. His mother is a faded memory and a photograph above the mantel. She left him with the old couple, some money, and firm instructions that he should attend a school with a better social tone than the common one.
His aunt and uncle rule the household like small, bad-tempered gods. They rap his knuckles over his table manners, forbid him to play with children they think low, and suspect every neighbour. Next door lives Pornick, a loud, bearded haberdasher and a Methodist, whom old Kipps despises for reasons that grow more comic by the page.
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What is Kipps by H. G. Wells about?
It follows Arthur Kipps, a draper's apprentice in Kent who unexpectedly inherits money. He tries to rise in society with the help of friends and teachers, only to find that polish and wealth matter less than kindness and honest ties.
Is Kipps a true story?
No, it is a novel. Wells drew on his own youth as a draper's apprentice for the shop scenes, and his own world for the seaside towns, but Kipps and his friends are invented characters.
Who is Chitterlow in Kipps?
Harry Chitterlow is a talkative actor and would-be playwright who knocks Kipps over with his bicycle. He becomes Kipps's friend, draws him into a play scheme, and keeps turning up at the book's key moments.
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.
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