One of H. G. Wells' most celebrated short stories, in which a rising politician tells his friend of an experience which has haunted him all his life, ever since he chanced upon a door which led him into a magical world of paradise and escape from an unhappy childhood. The story begins at 00:01:20
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:20 The Door in the Wall
00:49:46 Credits, thanks and further listening
H.G. (Herbert George) Wells (1866–1946) was an English writer prolific in many genres. He was born in Bromley, Kent, the fourth and youngest child of former domestic servants turned shopkeepers. When the shop struggled financially, Wells was apprenticed as a draper – an unhappy experience, which he later used in novels such as 'The History of Mr. Polly' and 'Kipps'. He was released from apprenticeship to become a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School, which allowed him to self-educate and work his way via a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London. He began writing by contributing short articles to periodicals such as The Pall Mall Gazette.
As an author, Wells is perhaps best remembered today for his science fiction – he is regarded as one of the founders of the genre, and many of his works have achieved the status of classics, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). From a young age Wells was an active socialist, and his later writing moved away from science fiction and tackled wider social and political themes, in novels such as 'Tono-Bungay' (1909) and 'The History of Mr. Polly' (1910). He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times.
'The Door in the Wall' was first published in 'The Daily Chronicle' on 14 July 1906. It was later reprinted in 'The Story-Teller' in August 1912, as well as published in book form as part of Wells' collection 'The Country of the Blind and Other Stories', in 1913. It's widely regarded as one of Wells' finest short stories and has been much anthologised.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2025.