The English Review
''The English Review'' was an English-language literary magazine published in London from 1908 to 1937. At its peak, the journal published some of the leading writers of its day.
History
The magazine was started by 1908 by Ford Madox Hueffer (la ...
'' in 1910. Because its plot notoriously derived from Wells's affair with
Amber Reeves
Amber Blanco White (' Reeves; 1 July 1887 – 26 December 1981) was a New Zealand-born British feminist writer and scholar.
Early life
Reeves was born in Christchurch, New Zealand,
the eldest of three children
of Fabian feminist Maud Pember Re ...
and satirised Beatrice and Sidney Webb, it was "the literary scandal of its day".
Plot summary
''The New Machiavelli'' purports to be written in the first person by its protagonist, Richard "Dick" Remington, who has a lifelong passion for "statecraft" and who dreams of recasting the social and political form of the English nation. Remington is a brilliant student at Cambridge, writes several books on political themes, marries an heiress and enters parliament as a
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
influenced by the socialism of Altiora and Oscar Bailey, a couple easily recognisable as the Webbs, only to go over to the
Conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
. Remington undertakes the editing of an influential political weekly and is returned to parliament on a platform advocating the state endowment of mothers but his career is wrecked by his love affair with a brilliant young Oxford graduate, Isabel Rivers. When rumours of their affair begin to circulate, Remington tries to break it off but then resolves to abandon wife, career, party and country to live in Italy, where he writes the ''
apologia pro vita sua
''Apologia Pro Vita Sua'' (Latin: ''A defence of one's own life'') is John Henry Newman's defence of his religious opinions, published in 1864 in response to Charles Kingsley of the Church of England after Newman quit his position as the Anglican ...
'' that the novel constitutes.
Themes
The novel's themes are politics and sex, both abiding preoccupations of the author. Biographer David Smith called ''The New Machiavelli'' "Wells's most autobiographical novel". The development of political and sexual passion in the protagonist is traced in intricate detail. The artificiality of Victorian and
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
morality is the novel's chief target: "Thank God! I'll soon be out of it! The shame of it! The very savages in Australia initiate their children better than the English do to-day. Neither of us was ever given a view of what they call morality that didn't make it show as shabby subservience, as the meanest discretion, an abject submission to unreasonable prohibitions! meek surrender of mind and body to the dictation of pedants and old women and fools. We weren't taught—we were mumbled at!"
Criticism
Vincent Brome
Vincent Brome (14 July 1910 – 16 October 2004) was an English writer, who gradually established himself as a man of letters. He is best known for a series of biographies of politicians, writers and followers of Sigmund Freud. He also wrote n ...
wrote that ''The New Machiavelli'' was "the beginning of the retreat of Wells the story-teller...It was the first ominous eruption of those magnificent moments of self-assertion which were to disintegrate the novelist in him". The novel has had many prestigious admirers, Joseph Conrad called it a "master-work",
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...
considered it Wells's masterpiece and
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
called it "awfully interesting"; another admirer,
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
, regarded Wells's use of the first person an artistic mistake.
Reception
Beatrice Webb called ''The New Machiavelli'' "very clever in a malicious way" but did not sue, saying that the novel "lays bare the tragedy of H.G.'s life—his aptitude for 'fine thinking' and even 'good feeling' and yet his total incapacity for decent conduct". Some libraries banned the book and the ''Spectator'' did not review it.Michael Sherborne, ''H. G. Wells: Another Kind of Life'' (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 211. Reviewers were receptive to Wells's political argument but hostile to its sexual message.