London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and environs in 1920–1922 with two protagonists: Albert Edward Preemby and his daughter, Christina Alberta.
Starting off as a seemingly light-hearted novel of social realism, highlighting the class system of contemporary society, much like he did in ''
Kipps
''Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul'' is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1905. It was reportedly Wells's own favourite among his works, and it has been adapted for stage, cinema and television productions, including the musical ''H ...
'', Wells soon lambasts the then-current state of mental health legislation and of asylums, before ending the novel with the characters discussing feminism and the conflict between individual independence and being a willing part of a greater society. With the title character of the father dying of pneumonia after rescue from a mental hospital, and his daughter Christina Albert refusing to marry her love interest Bobby Roothers (after candidly admitting to him that she is no longer a virgin), the expected happy ending does not occur. Perhaps due to its descent into open didacticism, the novel was not one of Wells' most successful or popular.
Characters
Mr. Preemby is a dreamy, unassertive man until he is persuaded, in the months following his wife's death, that he is the incarnation of Sargon, the ancient king of Sumeria, returned to restore harmony in a disordered post-World War I world. He has long been attracted to esoterica and stories of ancient
Atlantis
Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...
, and is persuaded that he has a special destiny by a
séance
A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spe ...
at a boarding house in
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. ...
. Committed to a lunatic asylum, Mr. Preemby escapes and recovers some of his sanity, but dies prematurely in the winter of 1921–1922.
Chris Hossett, his wife, before her demise runs the Limpid Stream Laundry with Mr. Preemby's assistance. Her only daughter, Christina Alberta, is not Mr. Preemby's natural daughter, being the fruit of a brief liaison in the summer of 1899 in the seaside resort of
Sheringham
Sheringham (; population 7,367) is an English seaside town within the county of Norfolk, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 252 - Norfolk Coast East''. . The motto of the town, granted in 1953 to the Sheringham Urban Distr ...
. Christina is a strong personality determined to live independently. She later discovers, to their mutual surprise, her true father, Wilfred Devizes, a psychologist, during her search for Mr. Preemby. Devizes serves as a mouthpiece for many of H.G. Wells's social ideas in the latter half of the novel, such as the notion that "True education sself-subordination to a greater life, to the social self."
''Christina Alberta's Father'' also features two other important characters: Paul Lambone, a successful writer who befriends Christina Alberta and is mostly treated in a comic vein, and Robert "Bobby" Roothing, an aspiring writer. Bobby finds "Sargon" appealing, in part because he is a veteran of military service in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and helps Mr. Preemby find a room during his "Sargon" phase, counseling him and then rescuing him from the asylum at Cummerdown Hill by taking him to lodgings in
Dymchurch
Dymchurch is a village and civil parish in the Folkestone and Hythe district of Kent, England. The village is located on the coast five miles (8 km) south-west of Hythe, and on the Romney Marsh.
History
The history of Dymchurch began with ...
. Bobby falls in love with Christina Alberta, who reciprocates but refuses to marry him in order to maintain her independence.
Speaking in Vienna in 1928 the psychologist C.G.Jung stated -
''My friend the great English writer H.G.Wells has drawn a wonderful picture of this state of affairs in a novel. The hero of his story 'Christina Alberta's Father' is a petty businessman, completely imprisoned in his prosaic surroundings and his business. But in his few leisure hours another ego gradually emerges from his subconscious. He fancies he is the re-embodiment of the Babylonian ruler
Sargon I
Sargon I (also transcribed as Šarru-kīn I and Sharru-ken I) was the king (Išši’ak Aššur, "Steward of Assur") during the Old Assyrian period from 1920 BC to 1881 BC. On the Assyrian King List, Sargon appears as the son and successor of Iku ...
, the reincarnation of king of kings. Some kind of Sargon, in various disguises, is hiding in everyone of us. The fact that he cannot get out of the subconscious and is unable to develop himself is often the case of severe psychic disturbances.''
Self-reference
In Part 3, chapter 3, section 3, Wells references himself and his utopian science fiction: "Christina Alberta's thoughts and speech seemed to him to be moving about without a stitch on, like the people in some horrible Utopia by Wells."