H G Wells

The Wheels of Chance Annotated H G Wells

The Wheels of Chance is an early comic novel by H. G. Wells about an August 1895 cycling holiday, somewhat in the style of Three Men in a Boat. The hero of The Wheels of Chance, Mr. Hoop driver, is a frustrated "draper's assistant" in Putney, a badly paid, grinding position and yet he owns a bicycle and is setting out on a bicycling tour of "the Southern Coast" on his annual ten days' holiday. Hoop driver's encounter inspires in him a desire to better himself, as well as impossibly romantic feelings toward Jessie. At last a party consisting of her stepmother, some of her stepmother's admirers and her former schoolteacher catch up with them. Jessie's bookish and romantic education has kept her ignorant of the realities of life, and her ignorance contributes to the comedy of Hoop driver's half-clever, half-ridiculous improvised stories of life in Africa.