Acknowledgements

Any book such as this, whose argument has been fashioned over several years and constantly adjusted in the light of further reading and discussion, must partially lose sight of its origins. I readily admit that in some cases I have forgotten how a particular line of thought developed; and much as I would like to I cannot now acknowledge all my intellectual debts. However, I would particularly like to thank Professor Gene LeMire of the School of Humanities, Flinders University, for some stimulating suggestions when the book was in embryo, and Professor Milton Millhauser of the University of Bridgeport for helping me to avoid some silly mistakes later on.

Thanks for help over particular points are due to: Professor Darko Suvin of McGill University and Professor Norman Mackenzie of the University of Sussex for information on Wells's biological interests and his textbooks of biology respectively; to Mr W.B. Hodgson of Sotheby's, London, Professor John Laird of the University of New South Wales and the Curator of the Dorset County Museum for information about Hardy's personal library and manuscripts; and to Mr J.R. Payne of Austin, Texas, for information on the variant editions of Hudson's A Crystal Age.

I would also like to thank Professor T. Craik of Durham University for making some of the resources of the English Department available to me, Gareth Reeves and his family for their hospitality, and the university itself for its generosity in making available a very p!easant house for some months. Most of the final draft of this book was written at Durham. The extraordinarily efficient resources of the California State University's library system made the last-revision stages fairly painless.

Like most married writers I owe my wife a considerable debt. Far too busy with her own career even to read the manuscript let alone type it, prepare the index, or whatever, she mainly restricted her help to the sphere of the financial. I am pleased to be able to record my appreciation now.

December 1983