The Complete Short Fiction of H.G. Wells

Mostly Online

H.G. Wells wrote 87 short stories, one deleted section of The Time Machine that’s been published as a story (“The Final Men”), and one short abandoned novel (The Chronic Argonauts).

Printed Editions

For printed copies of the short stories, I recommend The Complete Short Stories of H.G. Wells, edited by John R. Hammond [JRH1]. It contains 84 of the 87 short stories. Two other short stories (“A Talk with Gryllotalpa” and “A Vision of the Past.”) appear in H.G. Wells: Early Writings in Science and Science Fiction, edited and annotated by Robert M. Philmus and David Y. Hughes [P&H]. The short story (“Peter Learns Arithmetic”) is printed only in Fantasia Mathematica, edited by Clifton Fadiman [CF]. I have found “The Final Men” in 11 printed publications which are listed at the end of this transcription; and The Chronic Argonauts has had many printed publications, such as in The Book of Time, introduced by Fender Tucker.

Electronic Collection

The best electronic collection appears to be Complete Works of H.G. Wells, Illustrated Delphi Classics Kindle edition. It includes Wells’s longer fiction, The Chronic Argonauts, and at least the 84 Hammond short stories. It might have more, but they have no online table of contents for me to check.

Online Editions

Almost all of Wells’s short fiction is available online, most noteably at eBooks@Adelaide. I have included links to those online sites in the complete list below. As a side note, all of the stories that are not online appear in The Man with a Nose and Other Uncollected Short Stories of H.G. Wells, edited by John R. Hammond [JRH2], which is a subset of Hammond’s larger collection.

Contact

If you find other stories or online sources, please let me know! —Michael (main@colorado.edu)

The Story List

  1. “A Family Elopement” (1884) [JRH1,JRH2]
  2. “A Tale of the Twentieth Century” (1887) [JRH1,JRH2]
  3. “A Talk with Gryllotalpa” (1887) [P&H]
  4. “A Vision of the Past” (1887) [P&H]
  5. The Chronic Argonauts (1888, abandoned) [Several separate publications]
  6. “The Devotee of Art” (1888) [JRH1,JRH2]
  7. “The Flying Man” (aka “The Advent of the Flying Man”) (1893) [JRH1]
  8. “Aepyornis Island” (1894) [JRH1]
  9. “A Deal in Ostriches”(1894) [JRH1]
  10. “The Diamond Maker”(1894) [JRH1]
  11. “The Flowering of the Strange Orchid” (aka “The Strange Orchid”) (1894) [JRH1]
  12. “The Hammerpond Park Burglary” (1894) [JRH1]
  13. “The Lord of the Dynamos” (1894) [JRH1]
  14. “How Gabriel Became Thompson” (1894) [JRH1,JRH2]
  15. “In the Avu Observatory” (1894) [JRH1]
  16. “In the Modern Vein: An Unsympathetic Love Story” (aka “A Bardlet’s Romance”) (1894) [JRH1]
  17. “The Jilting of Jane” (1894) [JRH1]
  18. “The Man With a Nose” (1894) [JRH1]
  19. “A Misunderstood Artist” (1894) [JRH1,JRH2]
  20. “Mr. Ledbetter’s Vacation” (1894) (aka “Mr. Leadbetter’s Vacation”) [JRH1]
  21. “The Stolen Bacillus” (1894) [JRH1]
  22. “The Thing in No. 7” (1894) [JRH1,JRH2]
  23. “Through a Window” (aka “At a Window”) (1894) [JRH1]
  24. “The Thumbmark” (1894) [JRH1,JRH2]
  25. “The Treasure in the Forest” (1894) [JRH1]
  26. “The Triumphs of a Taxidermist” (1894) [JRH1]
  27. “The Final Men” (aka “The Grey Man” or “The Missing Pages”) (1895)
  28. “The Argonauts of the Air” (1895) [JRH1]
  29. “A Catastrophe” (1895) [JRH1]
  30. “The Cone” (1895) [JRH1]
  31. “How Pingwill Was Routed” (aka “Routed”) (1895) [JRH1,JRH2]
  32. “Le Mari Terrible” (1895) [JRH1,JRH2]
  33. “The Moth” (aka “A Moth—Genus Novo”) (1895) [JRH1]
  34. “Our Little Neighbour” (1895) [JRH1,JRH2]
  35. “Pollock and the Porroh Man” (1895) [JRH1]
  36. “The Reconciliation” (aka “The Bulla”) (1895) [JRH1]
  37. “The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes” (aka “The Story of Davidson’s Eyes”) (1895) [JRH1]
  38. “The Sad Story of a Dramatic Critic” (aka “The Obliterated Man”) (1895) [JRH1]
  39. “The Temptation of Harringay” (1895) [JRH1]
  40. “Wayde’s Essence” (1895) [JRH1,JRH2]
  41. “The Apple” (1896) [JRH1]
  42. “In the Abyss” (1896) [JRH1]
  43. “The Plattner Story” (1896) [JRH1][2]
  44. “The Purple Pileus” (1896) [JRH1]
  45. “The Rajah’s Treasure” (1896) [JRH1,JRH2]
  46. “The Red Room” (aka “The Ghost of Fear”) (1896) [JRH1]
  47. “The Sea Raiders” (1896) [JRH1]
  48. “A Slip Under the Microscope” (1896) [JRH1]
  49. “The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham” (1896) [JRH1]
  50. “Under the Knife” (aka “Slip Under the Knife”) (1896) [JRH1]
  51. “The Crystal Egg” (1897) [JRH1]
  52. “The Lost Inheritance” (1897) [JRH1]
  53. “Mr Marshall’s Doppelgänger” (1897) [JRH1,JRH2]
  54. “A Perfect Gentleman on Wheels” (aka “A Perfect Gentleman”) (1897) [JRH1,JRH2]
  55. “The Presence by the Fire” (1897) [JRH1,JRH2]
  56. “The Star” (1897) [JRH1]
  57. “A Story of the Days To Come” (1897) [JRH1]
  58. “A Story of the Stone Age” (aka “Stories of the Stone Age”) (1897) [JRH1]
  59. “Jimmy Goggles the God” (1898) [JRH1]
  60. “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” (1898) [JRH1]
  61. “Miss Winchelsea’s Heart” (1898) [JRH1]
  62. “The Stolen Body” (1898) [JRH1]
  63. “Walcote” (1898) [JRH1,JRH2]
  64. “Mr. Brisher’s Treasure” (1899) [JRH1]
  65. “A Vision of Judgment” (1899) [JRH1]
  66. “A Dream of Armageddon” (1901) [JRH1]
  67. “Filmer” (1901) [JRH1]
  68. “Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland” (1901) [JRH1]
  69. “The New Accelerator” (1901) [JRH1]
  70. “The Inexperienced Ghost” (aka “The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost”) (1902) [JRH1]
  71. “The Loyalty of Esau Common” A Fragment (1902) [JRH1,JRH2]
  72. “The Land Ironclads” (1903) [JRH1]
  73. “The Magic Shop” (1903) [JRH1]
  74. “The Truth About Pyecraft” (1903) [JRH1]
  75. “The Valley of the Spiders” (1903) [JRH1]
  76. “The Country of the Blind” (1904) [JRH1]
  77. “The Empire of the Ants” (1905) [JRH1]
  78. “The Door in the Wall” (1906) [JRH1]
  79. “The Beautiful Suit” (aka “A Moonlight Fable”) (1909) [JRH1]
  80. “Little Mother up the Morderberg” (1910) [JRH1]
  81. “My First Aeroplane” (1910) [JRH1]
  82. “The Story of the Last Trump” (1915) [JRH1]
  83. “The Wild Asses of the Devil” (1915) [JRH1,JRH2]
  84. ” Peter Learns Arithmetic” (1918) [CF]
  85. “The Grisly Folk” (1921) [JRH1]
  86. “The Pearl of Love” (1924) [JRH1]
  87. “The Queer Story of Brownlow’s Newspaper” (1932) [JRH1,JRH2]
  88. “Answer to Prayer” (1937) [JRH1,JRH2]
  89. “The Country of the Blind” (revised, 1939) [JRH1,JRH2].
    Note: I think that the major revisions to “The Country of the Blind” (#89 in the list) are to the ending only. The new ending begins right after the line: “Oh, if you would,” she sobbed, “if only you would!” The link that I’ve provided is to a google books preview that includes all of the revised story from that point forward (go to the top of page 23), but I have no online version for the entire revised story.