H.G. Wells and All Things Russian

H. G. Wells and All Things Russian is a fertile terrain for research and this volume will be the first to devote itself entirely to the theme. Wells was an astute student of Russian literature, culture and history, and the Russians, in turn, became eager students of Wellss views and works. During the Soviet years, in fact, no significant foreign author was safer for Soviet critics to praise than H. G. Wells. The reason was obvious. He had met and largely approved of Lenin, was a close friend of the Soviet literary giant Maxim Gorky and, in general, expressed much respect for Russias evolving Communist experiment, even after it fell into Stalins hands. While Wellss attitude towards the Soviet Union was, nevertheless, often ambivalent, there is definitely nothing ambiguous about the tremendous influence his works had on Russian literary and cultural life.