''The Hampdenshire Wonder'' is a 1911 science fiction novel by J. D. Beresford. It is one of the first novels to involve a

wunderkind A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...

. The child in it, Victor Stott, is the son of a famous cricket player. This origin is perhaps a reference to H.G. Wells's father Joseph Wells. The novel concerns his progress from infant to almost preternaturally brilliant child. Victor Stott is subtly deformed to allow for his powerful brain. One prominent, and unpleasant, character is the local minister. As Beresford's father was a minister, and Beresford was himself partially disabled, some see autobiographical aspects to the story. However this is unproven. What is more concrete is that the story of Christian Heinrich Heineken was an inspiration for the story. Whether the biography of that child prodigy was accurate or not, "the Lubeck prodigy" is mentioned in the work. In the original version, the progressionist ideas of Henri Bergson on

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

were a significant influence.

References

Sources

* * George M. Johnson. ''J.D. Beresford''. New York: Twayne/Simon and Schuster, 1998. * George M. Johnson. "The Other Side of Edwardian Fiction: Two Forgotten Fantasy Novels of 1911" ''Wormwood: Literature of the fantastic, supernatural and decadent''. U.K., No. 16 (Spring 2011) 3–15. * George M. Johnson. "Evil is in the Eye of the Beholder: Threatening Children in Two Edwardian Speculative Satires". ''Science Fiction Studies''. Vol. 41, No.1 (March 2014): 26–44.

External links

*
SF Site review of "The Wonder"
1911 British novels British science fiction novels 1911 science fiction novels Novels by J. D. Beresford Sidgwick & Jackson books {{1910s-sf-novel-stub