5 h 16 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 16 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What do you say to a good man whose life falls apart for no reason he can see?
Job Huss is a schoolmaster and a man of learning. Teaching is his life's work, but great loss shakes the life he has built. Visitors come with explanations. Among them is Sir Eliphaz Burthew, a man of standing whose confidence meets Job's refusal to accept answers he cannot believe.
In The Undying Fire, H. G. Wells brings the pattern of the biblical Book of Job into the modern world. Conversation becomes drama as suffering meets faith and tidy theories face a troubled man's questions. What is at stake is not just an explanation of misfortune, but the search for meaning when familiar answers no longer satisfy.
What you’ll discover
- A schoolmaster under strain Meet Job Huss, whose losses put his learning and convictions to a painful test.
- Comfort with sharp edges Watch visitors offer order and certainty where Job finds neither comfort nor a believable answer.
- An ancient argument returns Explore how Wells keeps the biblical story's shape while changing what it means.
- Faith open to questions Follow a novel that examines suffering and reshapes the idea of God through argument.
- The drama of ideas Enter conversations where competing beliefs, rather than fast action, carry the force of the story.
Who will love it
For readers who love a good argument about God, suffering and what schools are for, and who enjoy wit and feeling together in wartime England.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Mankind becomes the subject of a wager
- Huss refuses to surrender to despair
- His school becomes another threatened loss
- Nature offers no easy comfort
- Service matters more than promised rewards
- Education can resist a divided world
- The argument enters an ancient dream
- Ordinary details ground the great debate
- Shared knowledge gives courage practical work
Who’s who
- Job HussHeadmaster of Woldingstanton, shattered by disaster and illness, he wants his school saved and a meaning for suffering that does not require him to curse God.
- Mrs. HussHis wife, hard and frightened in her grief, turns on him and clings to small economies while she mourns their son.
- Sir Eliphaz BurrowsRich builder and school governor who wants to see Huss accept that his troubles must be a deserved lesson from a watchful God.
- Mr. William DadAircraft maker and governor who wants a practical, commercial school and has no patience for deep questions.
- Mr. Joseph FarrTechnical master who wants Huss's post and attacks his pride and his history teaching.
- Dr. Elihu BarrackA blunt young doctor with a prosthetic leg, he trusts facts and wants education to teach boys the rules of the game.
- Sir Alpheus MengoA tart, impatient surgeon who wants his patient in bed and his operation started on time.
- SatanThe Unexpected, heaven's storyteller, he wants to prove that mankind will lose faith when tested hard enough.
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The Undying Fire
by H. G. Wells · 1919
A headmaster in a seaside lodging faces cancer, ruin and three visitors who say God is punishing him.
Medium level2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What if the old story of Job were told again in a stuffy seaside boarding house in the summer of 1918? A schoolmaster sits in a horsehair chair, and a young doctor with one leg stands at the door.
The Undying Fire at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h2 h 20 min fast, 3 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 42,700 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1919by 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
God and Satan stake a new wager on mankind
The book opens in heaven, as the old story does. Suns and planets spin through a floor of crystal ether. God sits wrapped in blinding white light. Satan arrives like a seasoned traveler, his halo slightly worn and his luggage labels still attached.
The two are old rivals who play chess on a scale beyond the human. God makes the board, the pieces and every move. Satan slips one small inaccuracy into each move, so that no plan runs quite smoothly. God says he alone creates. Satan answers that he ferments, and that without him the universe would freeze into perfect, lifeless crystal.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1919
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 20 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Wells, H. G. The Undying Fire. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-undying-fire.
Wells, H. G. (2026). The undying fire. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-undying-fire (Original work published 1919)
Wells, H. G. The Undying Fire. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-undying-fire.
@book{wells2026undying,
author = {Wells, H. G.},
title = {The Undying Fire},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-undying-fire},
note = {First published 1919}
}
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What is The Undying Fire about?
It is a modern retelling of the Book of Job. A headmaster named Job Huss loses his pupils, savings, son and health in wartime England, then argues about God, suffering and education with three visitors and a doctor.
Who are Eliphaz, Dad, Farr and Elihu in The Undying Fire?
They echo the figures from the Book of Job. Sir Eliphaz Burrows is the rich governor, with Mr. Dad and Mr. Farr as his companions, and Dr. Elihu Barrack is the young doctor who speaks last with a blunt voice.
What does the undying fire mean in the book?
It is Huss's name for a spirit of truth and service in human hearts, which he calls God. He says it is not personal but shared, and that it survives each person and urges people toward unity.
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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