In the Days of the Comet
H. G. Wells
 An unnamed narrator&nbsp;– by implication H. G. Wells himself&nbsp;– is the author of a prologue ("The Man Who Wrote in the Tower") and an epilogue ("The Window of the Tower"). In these short texts is depicted an encounter with a "happy, active-looking" old man who is none other than the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative that is the novel per se: now 72 years of age, he is writing the story of his life immediately before and after "the Change." This narrative is divided into three "books": Book I: The Comet; Book II: The Green Vapours; and Book III: The New World. Book I, which is remarkable for its close description of early 20th-century working-class living conditions in the English Midlands, recounts how William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank [a place where pottery is made] in Clayton," quits his job just as an economic recession caused by American dumping hits industrial Britain, and is unable to find another position. His emotional life is dominated by his love for Nettie Stuart, "the daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall's widow", who lives 17 miles away in a village called Checkshill Towers. Converted to the cause of socialism by his older, scientifically inclined friend, Parload, Leadford is a headstrong youth who blames class-based injustice for the squalid living conditions in which he and his mother live. The date of the action is unspecified, but evidently takes place in the near future. (At the end of Book I war has broken out between Great Britain and Germany, so the book has a certain prophetic character.) When Nettie jilts Leadford for the son and heir of the Verrall family he buys a revolver, intending to kill them both and then himself. As this plot matures, a comet with an "unprecedented band in the green" in its spectroscopy looms ever larger in the sky, eventually becoming brighter than the Moon. Leadford finds Nettie and Verrall in a little seaside bungalow village called Bone Cliff, near Shaphambury, as a naval battle is taking place off the coast. Just as he is about to execute his murderous plan the green comet enters the Earth's atmosphere, causing a green fog to envelop the planet that puts all animal life (except in the sea) to sleep for three hours. Book II opens with Leadford's awakening. He feels a great clarity of mind and experiences a total alteration in his relation to himself, to society, and to the world. No longer is he dominated by passion; he is acutely aware of the beauty in the world and his attitude toward others is one of generous fellow-feeling. The same effects occur in everyone around the world; they immediately concur in the necessity to "begin afresh" and remake human society. By chance, Leadford falls in with a Cabinet minister and briefly becomes his secretary, enabling him to observe how leaders, too, come to their senses and resolve to transform society by eliminating private ownership of land, etc. Book III begins with an intense discussion by Verrall, Leadford, and Nettie, about their future. Although Nettie wants to establish a ménage à trois, Leadford and Verrall reject the idea, and Leadford returns to devote himself to his mother, now in declining health. She dies toward the end of the Year of the Scaffolding (as the first year after the comet is called). Leadford marries Anna, who has been helping care for his mother, and they have a son, but soon thereafter Nettie contacts Leadford. They still love each other, but the felt necessity of sexual exclusivity has become a thing of the past. In the epilogue, the author expresses distate for this development, and the 72-year-old Leadford tells him that he and Nettie became lovers, and that he, Nettie, Verrall, and Anna were from then on "very close, you understand, we were friends, helpers, personal lovers in a world of lovers." The author is troubled "by my uneasy sense of profound moral differences."