self-made man
"Self-made man" is a classic phrase coined on February 2, 1842 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate, to describe individuals whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Foun ...
who has grown rich as the proprietor of International Bread and Cake Stores and Staminal Bread. Sir Isaac meets his future wife when she is only seventeen and still a student in a boardinghouse in Wimbledon; she marries him largely out of pity. But the marriage is not a happy one, despite great wealth and the birth of four children. Sir Isaac is inherently domineering, and in an age of
Suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
s he encounters a desire for greater freedom in his wife.
The plot of the novel turns on Lady Harman's relationship with George Brumley (invariably "Mr. Brumley" in the text), a successful genteel novelist whose wife has died three and a half years earlier. Lady Harman meets Mr. Brumley because the Harmans buy his house, Black Strand, in the countryside outside London. Mr. Brumley falls in love with Lady Harman at first sight. His interest in her leads him and a number of acquaintances to pay Lady Harman a visit. This results is invitations to luncheons and committees for Lady Harman, and despite all his efforts the possessive Sir Isaac is unable to quell his wife's desire to accept. Through many twists and turns Mr. Brumley's attachment to Lady Harman increases until, after the death of Sir Isaac, he appears to win her love on the novel's concluding page. (This comes after she has definitively refused to marry him, and the reader is left uncertain whether her passionate kiss signifies that she has changed her mind on this question.)
Themes
Like ''
Ann Veronica
''Ann Veronica'' is a novel by H. G. Wells published in 1909. It describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty", against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contem ...
'', ''The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman'' reflects H.G. Wells's enthusiasm for the ideal of the
New Woman
The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence well into the 20th century. In 1894, Irish writer Sarah Grand (1854–1943) used the term "new woman" in an influential article, to refer to ...
. Lady Harman's interest in the condition of women persuades Sir Isaac (after Lady Harman's imprisonment for a month for breaking a post office window in support of the cause of women's suffrage has shocked him into acquiescence) to invest in the creation of six boardinghouses for working women. She enlists the aid of the devoted Mr. Brumley, and his inquiries result in certain Wellsian convictions that she embraces: "the forces of social organization have been coming into play now, more and more for a century and a half, to produce new wholesale ways of doing things, new great organizations, organizations that invade the autonomous family more and more, and are perhaps destined ultimately to destroy it altogether and supersede it." Lady Harman comes to see her work with the hostels in this context and as her ''raison d'être''.
While somewhat muted, racial
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
stereotypes permeate the novel. Sir Isaac's avidity, and his pointed nose and its visibility in his children, are frequently mentioned, and his business efficiency is linked to characteristics like those suggested in this passage about his youth: "his disposition at
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
to block and to bowl 'sneaks' and 'twisters' under-arm had raised his average rather than his reputation; he had evaded fights and dramatic situations, and protected himself on occasions of unavoidable violence by punching with his white knuckles held in a peculiar and vicious manner. He has always been a little insensitive to those graces of style, in action if now in art, which appeal so strongly to the commoner sort of English mind; he played first for safety, and that assured, for uttermost advantage. These tendencies became more marked with maturity." But Sir Isaac's Jewishness is never discussed; indeed, it is never even made explicit. Instead, it is conveyed through asides and insinuations.
''The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman'' is also an extensive satire of many aspects of British society on the eve of World War I.
Composition and reception
H.G. Wells wrote most of ''The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman'' in late 1913 and early 1914; the novel was published in October 1914. Wells claimed that the title character derived from
Maud Pember Reeves
Maud Pember Reeves (24 December 1865 – 13 September 1953) (born Magdalene Stuart Robison) was a suffragist, socialist, feminist, writer and member of the Fabian Society. She spent most of her life in New Zealand and Britain.
Early life
Re ...
Holbrook Jackson
George Holbrook Jackson (31 December 1874 – 16 June 1948) was a British journalist, writer and publisher. He was recognised as one of the leading bibliophiles of his time.
Biography
Holbrook Jackson was born in Liverpool, England. He worked ...
reviewed the novel favourably in ''
T.P.'s Weekly
Thomas Power O'Connor (5 October 1848 – 18 November 1929), known as T. P. O'Connor and occasionally as Tay Pay (mimicking his own pronunciation of the initials ''T. P.''), was an Irish nationalist politician and journalist who served as a ...
''. But
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years, he is famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the te ...
judged it a "careless book" written from the "upper layers" of Wells's mind. In 1951 biographer
Vincent Brome
Vincent Brome (14 July 1910 – 16 October 2004) was an English writer, who gradually established himself as a man of letters. He is best known for a series of biographies of politicians, writers and followers of Sigmund Freud. He also wrote nu ...
observed that the novel was "read with deeply diminished interest to-day." Biographers Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie called ''The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman'' Wells's "counterpart of Ibsen's ''
A Doll's House
''A Doll's House'' (Danish and nb, Et dukkehjem; also translated as ''A Doll House'') is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having bee ...
''."Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, ''H.G. Wells: A Biography'' (Simon and Schuster, 1973), p. 290.