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Tono Bungay

H. G. Wells

Book Overview: 

Tono-Bungay is a realist semi-autobiographical novel. It is narrated by George Ponderevo, a science student who is drafted in to help with the promotion of Tono-Bungay, a harmful stimulant disguised as a miraculous cure-all, the creation of his uncle Edward. The quack remedy Tono-Bungay seems to have been based upon the patent medicines Carter's Little Liver Pills and Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People.... As the tonic prospers, George experiences a swift rise in social status, elevating him to riches and opportunities that he had never imagined, nor indeed desired. The novel displays Edward's social climbing satirically, and also George's discomfort at rising in social class. The hero's personal life is narrated with unusual frankness for an Edwardian novel.... The empire eventually overextends itself and then collapses. George tries unsuccessfully to save his uncle and eventually ends up designing battleships for the highest bidder. (Summary from Wikipedia)

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .Not the scenery, perhaps, or the air we get here, but—LIFE! We've got very comfortable little rooms, very comfortable considering, and I shall rise. We're not done yet, we're not beaten; don't think that, George. I shall pay twenty shillings in the pound before I've done—you mark my words, George,—twenty—five to you.... I got this situation within twenty-four hours—others offered. It's an important firm—one of the best in London. I looked to that. I might have got four or five shillings a week more—elsewhere. Quarters I could name. But I said to them plainly, wages to go on with, but opportunity's my game—development. We understood each other."

He threw out his chest, and the little round eyes behind his glasses rested valiantly on imaginary employers.

We would go on in silence for a space while he revised and restated that encounter. Then he would break out abruptly with some banal phrase.

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Community Reviews

Two points about this odd, sour, sometimes zippy but more often quite tedious novel that Wells thought was his greatest work.

I really love that well-known guide 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Horribly, it’s true book porn, all those mug shots of authors who I hardly thought had faces at all

Yo no conocía de nada esta novela de H.G.Wells. Tenía en mente una historia diferente a la que terminé encontrando pero me ha gustado igualmente.
Retrata muy bien la caída de la nobleza y el auge de los nuevos ricos que luchan por hacerse un hueco en la alta sociedad.

Reseña: https://contandoteunlibro

Maybe the best H.G. Wells' incursion outside his mother ship of science fiction, Tono-Bungay is the tale of a useless and addictive medicine embellished by an early form of marketing. However, behind the major plot, it hides an interesting criticism of a capitalist society, where everyone works and

I have read a number of H.G. Wells's early sci-fi novels. This is the first time I have read one of his "other" novels, and I am surprised to see that it is by far his best work. Tono-Bungay is a bildungsroman about growing up poor in Victorian England and making one's way in the world by a combinat

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