Joan and Peter
| Author | H. G. Wells |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Philosophical novel |
| Publisher | Cassell |
|
Publication date
|
September 1918 |
| Pages | 784 |
Joan and Peter, a 1918 novel by H. G. Wells, is at once a satirical portrait of late-Victorian and Edwardian England, a critique of the English educational system on the eve of World War I, a study of the impact of that war on English society, and a general reflection on the purposes of education. Wells regarded it as "one of the most ambitious" of his novels.
The novel begins in 1893 with the birth of Peter Stublands, but the first three chapters are devoted to the lives of his parents. Peter's father, Arthur, is one of the heirs of a wealthy family of Quaker manufacturers from the West of England. His mother Dolly is the daughter of a vicar from a well-off family, but being intellectually inclined, she has "read herself out of the great Anglican culture." Arthur, artistically inclined but not especially gifted, is a devotee of the Arts and Crafts movement and a Fabian socialist. Dolly meets him and falls in love with him while she is studying "in the Huxley days as a free student at the Royal College of Science." Arthur designs a house near Limpsfield called the Ingle-Nook, where they live, and where Peter is born. Arthur has two sisters with advanced ideas, Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Phoebe, who are regular visitors.
Dolly, however, has retained strong feelings for a cousin who joined the navy, Oswald Sydenham, whose face is terribly scarred from the bombardment of Alexandria, and is devoting his career to extending the British Empire in Africa. When Arthur's free-thinking goes so far as to make him unfaithful to Dolly, Oswald and Dolly fall in love, but Dolly rejects Oswald's passionate appeal to defy convention and live with him in Central Africa. Dejected, Oswald leaves to continue his work in Africa. The reconciliation of Dolly and Arthur has a tragic consequence, however: on a trip meant to celebrate the overcoming of their differences, they are drowned in a boating accident off Capri.
In their wills, Dolly and Arthur had named Oswald as the guardian of their son. But because of Dolly's leanings toward Oswald, Arthur changed his will just before he died to add three other guardians: Aunts Phoebe and Phyllis, on his side, and Lady Charlotte Sydenham on Dolly's. The operation of this will in the absence of Oswald in Africa results in an extended battle over the education of Peter and also of Joan, a child of Dolly's brother born out of wedlock and entrusted to them.
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