Résumé
Résumé de Au temps de la comète
Go deeper: the whole of Au temps de la comète
About 5 h 40 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who like a hot-blooded love plot mixed with big questions about war, class and how a society could start again. It suits anyone drawn to early science fiction.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
What would you do if a comet were about to touch the Earth and all you cared about was a girl who had left you? William Leadford, a bitter young clerk in the smoky Midlands, buys a revolver and steals money from a curate. He sets out across England to shoot his sweetheart Nettie and the rich young man who has taken her.
In the Days of the Comet is a novel by H. G. Wells, written as a story and as an argument. He asks what people might become if the fog of fear, greed and ignorance lifted at once. Leadford tells it as an old man, looking back from a tower in a bright new world. You get a hot chase and a bold dream of a fresh start.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A bitter clerk who ignores the cometFree
- 2Nettie says no and a rival waits
- 3A revolver and a riot at the mine
- 4A runaway, a stolen purse and war
- 5The chase to the coast and the green mist
- 6The whole world wakes up different
- 7Rulers who learn to begin again
- 8Why a sick world makes small people
- 9Love will not obey the new clarity
- 10A story told from a tower fifty years on
Point clé 1 sur 10
A bitter clerk who ignores the comet
The book opens in a tower. A visitor finds a gray-haired man writing at a desk, with a far sea and a glittering city beyond his window. He is writing about the Change, and the visitor begins to read. The story belongs to the writer, who tells it at seventy-two.
His name is William Leadford, called Willie. He grew up in the Four Towns, a district of furnaces, pot banks and slag heaps. He remembers the room of his friend Parload, with its cracked ceiling and its stinking paraffin lamp. At the time he thought it normal.
On the evening that starts the tale, Parload stands at the window with an opera glass, hunting for a new comet. Willie hardly listens. He is twenty-one, refused a raise and sore over Nettie. Walking out into the warm night, he says he wishes the comet would hit the world and wipe out its misery. Parload answers that a collision would only make what was left more savage.
Willie cannot see the great thing above him because he is busy nursing his own grievances.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Au temps de la comète
About 5 h 40 min to read.Questions about Au temps de la comète
What is In the Days of the Comet about?
It follows a young Midlands clerk, Willie Leadford, who sets out to kill his sweetheart and her rich lover. A comet's gas then changes the air and wakes everyone clear-headed, and the book looks at how people might remake their world.
Who is Nettie in In the Days of the Comet?
Nettie Stuart is the head gardener's daughter and Willie's first love. She leaves him for Edward Verrall, and the story then follows how Willie, Nettie and Verrall deal with their feelings before and after the comet's effect.
What is the Change in the novel?
The Change is the great awakening that follows the comet's passage. Its gas alters the nitrogen in the air, air-breathing creatures sleep for about three hours, and people wake clear-headed and ready to rebuild society.
Is In the Days of the Comet a true story?
No, it is science fiction by H. G. Wells, written in the early twentieth century. The Midlands towns and the war scare feel real, but the comet's gas and the world-wide awakening are imagined to test ideas about society.
Is In the Days of the Comet easy to read?
It is told by a lively narrator in plain, direct language, with a clear chase story in the first part. Short scenes, sharp portraits and a frame story with a tower visitor help the reader move along.
Cite this edition
Wells, H. G. In the Days of the Comet. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-the-days-of-the-comet.
Wells, H. G. (2026). In the days of the comet. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-the-days-of-the-comet (Original work published 1906)
Wells, H. G. In the Days of the Comet. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-the-days-of-the-comet.
@book{wells2026days,
author = {Wells, H. G.},
title = {In the Days of the Comet},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/in-the-days-of-the-comet},
note = {First published 1906}
}
