> Skip to content
  • Published: 20 April 2005
  • ISBN: 9780141441061
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $26.00

The Sleeper Awakes




Rediscover H.G. Wells - what does he mean to you?

A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his trance he is horrified to discover that the money accumulated in his name is being used to maintain a hierarchal society in which most are poor, and more than a third of all people are enslaved. Oppressed and uneducated, the masses cling desperately to one dream - that the sleeper will awake, and lead them all to freedom.

  • Published: 20 April 2005
  • ISBN: 9780141441061
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $26.00

Other books in the series

On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

H.G. Wells

H.G. Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1866. After an education repeatedly interrupted by his family’s financial problems, he eventually found work as a teacher at a succession of schools, where he began to write his first stories.
Wells became a prolific writer with a diverse output, of which the famous works are his science fiction novels. These are some of the earliest and most influential examples of the genre, and include classics such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. Most of his books very well-received, and had a huge influence on many younger writers, including George Orwell and Isaac Asimov. Wells also wrote many popular non-fiction books, and used his writing to support the wide range of political and social causes in which he had an interest, although these became increasingly eccentric towards the end of his life.
Twice-married, Wells had many affairs, including a ten-year liaison with Rebecca West that produced a son. He died in London in 1946.

Also by H.G. Wells

See all