In the Days of the Comet

Key takeaways

In the Days of the Comet belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect In the Days of the Comet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of In the Days of the Comet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In the Days of the Comet is a 1906 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which humanity is "exalted" when a comet causes "the nitrogen of the air, the old azote," to "change out of itself" and become "a respirable gas, differing indeed from oxygen, but helping and sustaining its action, a bath of strength and healing for nerve and brain." The result: "The great Change has come for evermore, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men."

Plot summary An unnamed narrator 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: the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative, 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 recounts that 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. He returns to being a student and his emotional life is dominated by his attachment to Nettie Stuart, "the daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall's widow", of a village called Checkshill Towers. Converted to socialism by his friend 'Parload', Leadford blames class-based injustice for the squalid living conditions in which he and his mother live. The date of the action is unspecified. When Nettie jilts Leadford for the son and heir of the Verrall family, Leadford buys a revolver, intending to kill them both and himself. As this plot matures, a comet with an "unprecedented band in the green" in its spectroscopy looms gradually larger in the sky, eventually becoming brighter than the Moon. Just as Leadford is about to kill his rivals, the green comet enters the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates, causing a soporific green fog. Book II opens with Leadford's awakening, in which he is acutely aware of the beauty in the world, he can think much more clearly, and his attitude toward others is one of generous fellow-feeling. The same effects occur in every human being, who accordingly re-organize human society. By chance, Leadford falls in with a Cabinet minister and briefly becomes his secretary. 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 devotes himself to his mother until her death. Leadford marries Anna, who has been helping care for his mother, and they have a son; but soon thereafter Nettie contacts Leadford. In the epilogue, the 72-year-old Leadford reveals 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."

Characters

William "Willie" Leadford At the beginning of the novel William Leadford is an angry, confident young man with an intellectual bent. Looking back fifty years later, he calls himself "ill clothed, ill fed, ill housed, ill educated and ill trained." His age is unclear: he is described both as 21 years of age and 17 or 18. He is a member of the British working class and, like H. G. Wells, a believer in socialism. Leadford has been Nettie Stuart's "sweetheart" for more than three years. He works in a "pot-bank," has studied shorthand, and is a religious sceptic. He lives in lodgings with his timid, work-worn, but loving mother, widowed by a train accident, who believes in "a quaint old-fashioned narrow faith."

Nettie Stuart Nettie, the beautiful daughter of a gardener, has known William Leadford since they were children because their mothers were "second cousins and old schoolfellows."

Edward Verrall The Verralls are a wealthy upper-class family. Mrs. Verrall is a widow. Edward Verrall is "a gallant youngster, people said, and very clever. Young as he was there was talk of parliament for him; he had been a great success at the university."

Parload Leadford's only close friend is a fellow clerk and socialist. But the pair quarrel and Leadford breaks off relations when Parload avers that socialism is "only a theory," whereas science is "something more". In later years Parload becomes a great scientist whose "work upon intersecting radiations has broadened the intellectual horizon of mankind for ever."

Reception Wells's open endorsement of polyamorous love at the end of In the Days of the Comet caused some scandal. Various organisations dedicated to preserving public morals, including the YWCA, Salvation Army and 'Anti-Vice and White Slavery' campaigners, spoke out against the book, as did several influential reviewers: 'socialistic men's wives, we gather,’ said the Times Literary Supplement, 'are, no less than their goods, to be held in common.' The affair also damaged Wells's standing in the Fabians. On 18 October 1906, Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary: "In the Days of the Comet ends with a glowing anticipation of promiscuity in sexual relationships ... [but] Wells is, I believe, merely gambling with the idea of free love—throwing it out to see what sort of reception it gets—without responsibility for its effect on the character of the hearers. It is this recklessness that makes Sidney dislike him."

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with In the Days of the Comet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what In the Days of the Comet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to In the Days of the Comet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about In the Days of the Comet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of In the Days of the Comet

In research: In the Days of the Comet appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses In the Days of the Comet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: In the Days of the Comet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1906 British novels, 1906 English-language novels, 1906 science fiction novels, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for In the Days of the Comet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study In the Days of the Comet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what In the Days of the Comet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain In the Days of the Comet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is In the Days of the Comet in simple terms?

In the Days of the Comet is a 1906 science fiction novel by H. G.

Why does In the Days of the Comet matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study In the Days of the Comet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on In the Days of the Comet.