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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 230 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 230 pagesAbout this book
What if an ordinary shop, a careless wish, or a scientific experiment opens the door to something you cannot control?
In Twelve Stories and a Dream, H. G. Wells gathers thirteen tales where bright promises lead toward laughter and alarm. Filmer explores the human difficulties behind powered flight. In The Magic Shop, a father and his young son, Gip, encounter wonders that grow harder to explain.
Other stories make familiar desires feel dangerous. The Truth About Pyecraft turns a wish to lose weight into strange comedy. The New Accelerator changes the speed of human experience, while The Stolen Body puts possession of the self at risk. A Dream of Armageddon brings personal love into conflict with political duty and devastating future war.
What you’ll discover
- Wonder behind the counter Enter The Magic Shop, where a father and son respond differently to impossible tricks.
- Wishes with awkward consequences Meet Pyecraft, whose desire to lose weight becomes the source of an unsettling joke.
- Power without wisdom The Man Who Could Work Miracles asks what happens when extraordinary ability outstrips ordinary judgment.
- Control slips away The Valley of Spiders confronts men accustomed to power with a threat they cannot easily command.
- A darker future A Dream of Armageddon sets the pull of love against political duty and devastating war.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy short stories with a sting of humor, and anyone curious about early science fiction, ghosts, fairies and impossible inventions, will find quick pleasures here. Fans of The Time Machine will enjoy more Wells.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Fame demands courage from an inventor
- A child welcomes what reason resists
- A clever cure creates another problem
- Strange encounters reveal ordinary loneliness
- Extraordinary tools bring power and exposure
- Leaving the body carries a risk
- Refinement can become a heart's defense
- Private love cannot keep war away
- The impossible reveals what people are
Who’s who
- FilmerA shy, anxious scientist who invents a practical flying machine and is made a national celebrity, while dreading the flight everyone expects of him.
- Mr. LedbetterA round, mild schoolmaster and curate who tests his own courage one night at a seaside villa and pays for it with a very strange holiday.
- Mr. PyecraftThe fattest clubman in London, who begs a friend for a family recipe to lose weight and gets more than he bargained for.
- Mr. SkelmersdaleA village grocer's assistant who says he spent three weeks in Fairyland and has longed ever since to return to the Fairy Lady.
- Professor GibberneA physiologist at Folkestone who invents the New Accelerator, a drink that speeds a body thousands of times beyond normal life.
- Miss WinchelseaA refined young schoolteacher on her first trip to Rome, anxious to be cultured, and drawn toward a scholarly young man she meets on the way.
- Mr. BesselA London businessman and psychical researcher who tries to project an apparition of himself across the city by force of will.
- Mr. BrisherA stout taproom talker who claims he found a treasure while digging a rockery for his sweetheart's respectable father.
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Twelve Stories and a Dream
by H. G. Wells · 1903
A boy and his father step into a shop where the magic is genuine and the counter stretches to cut off the door.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“remains the outstanding expositor of both the hope, and the despair, which are embodied in the technology and which are the major facts of life in our world”
In short
Can a man be made famous for the one thing he fears? In the first story of this book, a shy inventor perfects a flying machine and is crowned the greatest discoverer of his age.
Twelve Stories and a Dream at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 50 min3 h 50 min fast, 5 h 45 min slow
- Length
- 69,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1903by H. G. Wells
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Fame asks an inventor to be a hero
Filmer is told like a short biography. The narrator pieces together the life of a timid scientist from letters, patents and old newspaper files. Filmer starts as a poor student from Dover with a gift for chemistry and a nervous, grasping manner.
His idea is simple. Balloons float but drift with the wind, and heavy machines fly against it but crash. Filmer joins the two with sealed balloons that swell or shrink. For five years nobody listens. Then a model flight catches the eye of Banghurst, a loud newspaper owner, who pays him thousands of pounds. Within weeks Filmer is hailed as the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age.
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A boy and his father step into a shop where the magic is genuine and the counter stretches to cut off the door.
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Details
- First published
- 1903
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 25 min
- Level
- Medium level
- Paperback
- 230 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Hardcover
- 230 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print paperback
- 386 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print hardcover
- 386 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Delivery and returns
- Printed when you order. Usually here in 12 to 14 days.Arrives Wed 2 Dec to Tue 8 Decto United States, printed for you at cost
For Christmas, order by Thu 12 Nov
Cite this edition
Wells, H. G. Twelve Stories and a Dream. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/twelve-stories-and-a-dream.
Wells, H. G. (2026). Twelve stories and a dream. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/twelve-stories-and-a-dream (Original work published 1903)
Wells, H. G. Twelve Stories and a Dream. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/twelve-stories-and-a-dream.
@book{wells2026twelve,
author = {Wells, H. G.},
title = {Twelve Stories and a Dream},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/twelve-stories-and-a-dream},
note = {First published 1903}
}
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What is Twelve Stories and a Dream about?
It is a collection of thirteen short pieces by H. G. Wells. Each one drops a strange event into everyday life, such as a magic shop, a potion, a ghost or a flying machine, and shows how ordinary people respond.
Which stories are in Twelve Stories and a Dream?
The book holds Filmer, The Magic Shop, The Valley of Spiders, The Truth About Pyecraft, Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland, The Inexperienced Ghost, Jimmy Goggles the God, The New Accelerator, Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation, The Stolen Body, Mr. Brisher's Treasure, Miss Winchelsea's Heart and A Dream of Armageddon.
What is the dream in the title?
The dream is the final story, A Dream of Armageddon. A pale man on a train describes nightly dreams of living in a future pleasure city, where he faces a choice between love and his duty to a world drifting toward war.
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.
“There is absolutely no deception, sir.”
More by H. G. Wells
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