Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Critical Text of the 1936 1st Edition

Man Who Could Work Miracles is a film, ostensibly comic, that Wells (1866-1946) scripted for London Film Productions. The present volume is a literary text of the scenario & dialog published in advance of the movie’s 1937 release. Wells says it’s “a companion piece” to Things to Come, his serious film done a year before. Both films were produced by Alexander Korda, who extended to Wells unprecedented control over them.
The editor’s introduction explains how two such radically different films are related & discusses the artistic quality of the text, Wells’ overriding sense of cosmic vision, his views on sex & politics & his uncommon estimate of the common person’s incapacity for public affairs. The annotations for the original text offer penetrating insights into Wells’ thought as expressed for half a century in a variety of genres, including scientific romances & nonfiction. The author, the world’s foremost Wellsian scholar, here brings his unique power of analysis to bear on, in common opinion, the strangest work Wells ever wrote. The appendices include the 1898 short story, “The Man Who Could Work Miracles,” three related cosmic-vision short stories by Wells & an excerpt from a 1931 radio address by Wells accurately retitled “If I Were Dictator of the World.”