Wells in war of the words
QUESTION Did George Orwell once have a fight with H.G. Wells?
GeorGe orwell, who wrote Animal Farm and 1984, considered H.G. wells, author of war of The worlds and The Time Machine, the most influential english language novelist of the time.
He wrote: ‘Thinking people who were born about the beginning of this [20th] century are in some sense wells’s own creation.’
Yet, by the time of world war II, he considered wells’s political outlook to be outdated. In the summer of 1941, wells had published a collection of widely syndicated newspaper articles, his Guide To The New world, a commentary on the war, about which he remained optimistic.
wells argued that Germany had overreached itself and pending U.S. aid would end the war quickly.
orwell responded with his broadside of an essay, wells, Hitler And The world State, which appeared in the August 1941 issue of the literary magazine, Horizon.
orwell accused wells of being stuck in the 19th century and unable to comprehend the powerful social forces unleashed by fascism and communism.
He wrote disparagingly: ‘The succession of lower-middle-class novels, which are his greatest achievement, stopped short at the other war and never really began again’ and ‘since 1920 he has squandered his talents in slaying paper dragons’.
remarkably, despite this incendiary attack, orwell had invited wells to dinner at his home. He did not consider cancelling the date, perhaps because of an old etonian code of good manners.
Also present were the author Inez Holden and the poet william empson. Holden recorded a row between the two men, which did not come to blows — after all H.G. wells was 75 and orwell just 38.
Both had come armed with copies of Horizon, which they brandished at each other. During the argument, wells went as far as to describe orwell as ‘defeatist’.
orwell was more conciliatory, according to Holden: ‘orwell had put some whisky and snuff between them; he tried to keep it on as friendly as possible a footing. He never got rude or impertinent, although it was agreed that his manners were not so good on paper.’ By the end of the evening, tempers had cooled and wells later told Holden he’d enjoyed the evening.
G.E. Stuart, Edinburgh.
QUESTION What is the story of Carl Gugasian, America’s most prolific bank robber?
over 25 years, Carl Gugasian robbed more than 50 banks in rural Pennsylvania and other states, amassing $2 million.
He was an eccentric to whom achieving the perfect crime was more important than the haul itself.
Born to Armenian immigrants on october 12, 1947, in Broomall, Pennsylvania, he was shot while raiding a sweet shop aged 15 and was sentenced to two years at Camp Hill State Correctional Institution, Pennsylvania.
After his release, he was awarded a degree in electrical engineering.
He joined the U.S. Army and served at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where he received special forces and tactical weapons training.
Gugasian attended the University of Pennsylvania, earning a master’s degree in systems analysis. He also gained a black belt in karate at this time.
Using his considerable skills, Gugasian became a meticulous bank robber.
His preparation rituals included memorising complex maps, three-day surveillance sessions from concealed, wooded locations and the use of scent-deflecting chemicals to evade pursuing police dogs. His robberies took place just before bank closing time on a Friday, earning him the moniker The Friday Night Bank robber.
each robbery took only three minutes. At two minutes before closing, Gugasian would enter the bank wearing a mask and baggy clothing to disguise his race and physique.
He would walk into the banking hall, waving the gun and shouting at the staff to avert their eyes.
He would then vault over the counter, a seemingly spontaneous act designed to terrify the bank employees. He’d grab cash from the teller’s drawers, stuff it in a bag and exit.
All Gugasian’s targets were in rural locations, and he would make his escape on foot through woodland without the need for a getaway vehicle.
Gugasian was only captured by luck. He’d hidden all the details and equipment for his robberies, maps, face masks, survival rations, weapons and ammunition, sealed inside individual plastic pipes and placed in a concrete drainage pipe. The haul was found by two teenage boys playing in the woods near their home in radnor, Pennsylvania. This led to Gugasian’s arrest in 2002.
once arrested, he proved to be just as meticulous in helping the police by providing the details of all his unsolved crimes, which resulted in a reduction of his 115-year sentence to just 17 years. He was released on May 5, 2017.
Jacob Vischer, London E13.
QUESTION Who was the first woman to receive a patent?
IN 1637, Mrs Amye everard Ball was granted a patent for tincture of saffron, making her the first woman to receive one in her own right.
The original patent, held at the British library, begins: ‘The mistery, skill and invention of making, ordering or contribing of saffron into a manner or forme which shall dissolve into tincture and of divers other vegetables (as of roses, gilliflowers and the like) into an essence, after a newe way by her invented.’
Before the advent of modern chemical processes, saffron was used for dyeing, in cooking, as a medicine and in the preparation of perfume.
It was very expensive, so Mrs Ball’s patent to preserve and extend its lifespan would have been much sought after.
Adelaide Lang, Swansea.