Penguin Classics: The Shape Of Things To Come

When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful legacy an unpublished ‘dream book’. Inspired by visions he has experienced for many years, it appears to be a book written far into the future: a history of humanity from the date of his death up to 2105. ‘The Shape Of Things To Come’ provides this ‘history of the future’, an account that was in some ways remarkably prescient – predicting climatic disaster and sweeping cultural changes, including a Second World War, the rise of chemical warfare, and political instabilities in the Middle East.

Foretelling an era of war, plague and political chaos, this remains one of the greatest of all works of social prophecy. Part of a brand-new Penguin series of HG Wells’s works, this edition includes a newly established text, a full biographical essay on Wells, a further reading list and detailed notes. The introduction, by John Clute, explores the political message of the novel and considers the later Wells’s growing sense of disillusionment.