https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-new-machiavelli-by-h-g-wells/

This is one of Wells' longer works, whose protagonist emerges from the heart of the middle classes to a Cambridge education, election as a young Liberal MP in the 1906 landslide, and then defects to the Conservatives as a radical new thinker, and also abandons his long-suffering wife for a younger and keener admirer. That last bit, if not the rest, is very clearly drawn from Wells’ own experience, and the emotional passages are poignantly drawn, even if we can’t always sympathise much with the choices made by Wells’ hero.

The political parts, however, are crashingly dull in places; the world has moved on a lot from the hot topics of political debate in 1910, and I can’t believe that Wells’ writing on this was a really attractive feature of the book when it first came out. Of the political issues that we do remember from that time, the suffragette movement is mentioned only as background colour, and Ireland not at all. Wells may perhaps have been hoping to shift the political debate with his fiction, but contemporary reaction seems to have concentrated on the scandalous sex in this novel. (Which as usual is discreetly off-stage.) There’s also a frankly nasty portrait of Beatrice and Sydney Webb, which must have annoyed their many mutual friends. ( )

$50-25. Hardcover. Condition: Good+. No Jacket. 1st Edition. A good plus copy of the first US edition of 1910. The original red cloth binding with gilt lettering to the spine and front board is good. The New Machiavelli describes the disarray into which his life is thrown, when he meets the young and beautiful Isabel Rivers and becomes tormented by desire.
"The best fortress is to be found in the love of the people, for although you may have fortresses, they will not save you if you are hated by the people." "Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great

I have an ongoing, but ultimately minor, interest in Wells. Being an SF enthusiast he is, of course, important to me as the author of many early SF works. The creation of the Eloi & Morlock characters in "The Time Machine" has provided me w/ archetypes to refer to from time to time. Since he's mainly famous for writing SF, I became reinterested in him when I discovered that he'd written non-SF novels too. I found one called "Mr. Britling Sees It Through" long ago & read that & enjoyed it enuf to keep me still slightly caring. Probably decades later, I found & read "The Research Magnificent" wch did the least for me of all of them but it was still ok. Even though I probably read it w/in the last few yrs I don't really remember it at all - except that it was probably similar to "The New Machiavelli" in some ways.

A slightly odd sidenote here is that when I was young, probably an adolescent, I had a picture of Wells whoever he was married to at the time? sitting naked on lounge chairs at a nudist camp - wearing only sandals & perhaps reading the newspaper. Where on earth did I get such a thing? Given that I'm a nudist myself, I still find that very endearing.

Additionally, somewhere along the line, I learned that Wells had had socialist utopian inclinations. It all adds up to making a seemingly interesting fellow. This edition of "The New Machiavelli" has some scholarly framing - wch I always enjoy. The introduction by the editor, Norman MacKenzie, was of substantial interest to me. It also created a somewhat strange notion of the bk for me in advance. MacKenzie starts off w/ saying that:

"The New Machiavelli caused H. G. Wells more trouble than any other book he wrote. He was already in difficulties with his publisher, Sir Frederick Macmillan, who had found the recent and similar novel Ann Veronica so 'distasteful' that he had refused to put it in his list, and now rejected the new work on the grounds that it was scandalous and potentially libelous."

Anyway, the bk's presented as being "thinly disguised autobiography" & its main theme was supposedly rejected by Macmillan for being too much about sex instead of about the politics that Wells supposedly claimed it to be about. Wells is presented as a pioneer of using such autobiography "as a vehicle for his social and political ideas". That, too, interests me - since much of my writing is autobiography intended the same way - but w/o the novelistic framing.

So I read it expecting at least a little torrid sex & found it to be.. mostly about politics - or at least about the main character's journey from quasi-socialist liberal to conservative to someone who'd rather leave it all & have a kid w/ the lover that replaces the wife. The "scandalous"ness of it is definitely of a century ago. Still, in a sense, the protaganist comes across as an energetic & driven character who's a maestro at justifying what ultimately amounts to some pretty selfish behavior.

All in all, the politics of it aren't ultimately that interesting to me & I don't really recommend the bk to anyone. I wrote a few notes in the front of my copy to refer me to a few key sections where he outlines his philosophy, predicts war between England & Germany, discusses women & feminism, & promotes "practical eugenics".. but, writing this review, I find that I really don't care that much. Wells, for me, is more like an old acquaintance who I like to catch up on from time to time. ( )

This was a mixture between a coming of age novel (at the beginning), then a political one, and finally imbued with a sense of romance. Overall, I thought it was decently contemplated and I felt invested in the characters, the story, and the final turnout. I recommend it to those who are interested in Wells, as this is quite an original piece of work by him.

3 stars. ( )

I am a fan of Machiavelli. I really like HG Wells' science fiction. I figured this would also give some background into an era I have been reading (Virginia Woolf, Sackville-West and others of that group). This read was a slow struggle. I appreciate the intent, but the story did not age well ( )