H. G. Wells 2 hr 53 min read

An Angel falls out of the sky into an English village, is shot by a curate who mistook him for a rare bird, and finds the mannered, unkind human world a bewildering and painful place.

H. G. Wells's 1895 novel is a wry, poignant fantasy and social satire. Whimsical, sharp, beautifully told. Read it for gentle early Wells, a real angel loosed among Victorian villagers, whose innocent wonder throws the cruelty and absurdity of ordinary society into tender, ironic relief, in a charming fable with a melancholy heart.

In its time

Published in 1895, during the 1890s, wells arrives.

Reading it

2 hr 53 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).